Jimmy Doolittle Quotes

Nothing is as strong as the heart of a volunteer.

If we should have to fight, we should be prepared to do so from the neck up instead of from the neck down.

I am not a very timid type. It's very important to some people, but not to me. I have a simple philosophy: worry about those things you can fix. It you can't fix it, don't worry about it; accept it and do the best you can.

The first lesson is that you can't lose a war if you have command of the air, and you can't win a war if you haven't.

Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. If the United States is to survive, long-standing American concepts of 'fair play' must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counterespionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated, and more effective methods than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy.

Just try to make the world a better place for your having been here.

To become an ace a fighter must have extraordinary eyesight, strength, and agility, a huntsman's eye, coolness in a pinch, calculated recklessness, a full measure of courage and occasional luck!

I have been luckier than the law of averages should allow. I could never be so lucky again.

Adolf Galland said that the day we took our fighters off the bombers and put them against the German fighters, that is, went from defensive to offsensive, Germany lost the air war. I made that decision and it was my most important decision during World War II. As you can imagine, the bomber crews were upset. The fighter pilots were ecstatic.

Germany may have recovered a flying saucer as early as 1939

The country will some day pay for the stupidities of those who were in the majority on this commission. They know as much about the future of aviation as they do about the sign writing of the Aztecs.

I could never be so lucky again

The function and Navy in any future war will be to support the dominant air arm.