Buzz Aldrin Quotes

All work is noble, if it is legal and ethical, so do your best, whether you are first, second, or last. Never lose an opportunity, a job, an election, a competition, or anything else because you were too lazy to give it your best effort.

Nevertheless, I was convinced that I could be selected as an astronaut. Ed White had been accepted, and we had flown together in the Air Force during the cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States. I knew Ed was a good fighter pilot, and I was, too. “I can shoot gunnery as well as if not better than Ed can,” I said. “I’m going to apply to be an astronaut.

My MIT rendezvous studies really paid off. I knew that the critical key to our success would be our ability to separate the lunar landing module from a launch-and-reentry “mother ship,” a command module, land it on the Moon’s surface, then lift off and reliably rendezvous the two spacecraft in orbit around the Moon, a risky maneuver. If it failed, there would be no way to rescue the astronauts who had landed. Luckily, my MIT work was exactly what was needed to help figure out these complicated rejoining procedures. I thought about space rendezvous; talked about space rendezvous; ate, slept, and dreamed about space rendezvous so much that I became known to my astronaut peers as “Dr. Rendezvous.” Mercury

How could I have gone almost overnight from being on top of the world to feeling useless, worthless, and washed up? I wanted to resume my duties, but there were no duties to resume. There was no goal, no sense of calling, no project worth pouring myself into. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I had started drinking more. Life seemed to have lost its luster. On some days I couldn’t even find a reason to get out of bed. So I didn’t. Something was wrong; something within me was beginning to crack. I only hoped that I could figure it out before I broke down completely.

Always be open to advice from others, but what matters most is who you want to be, not merely what you want to do —

Average people tend to think about merely maintaining the status quo; unsuccessful people think about simply surviving. Innovators and explorers think about what might be possible.

Fear paralyzes in many ways, but especially if it keeps you from responding wisely and intelligently to challenges. The only way to overcome your fears is to face them head-on.

Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon. I am the first man to piss his pants on the moon.

Anyone who saw Albert Einstein trudging along the sidewalks of Princeton University with a briar pipe hanging out of his mouth might have assumed the odd fellow in the old, frumpy overcoat and socks that didn’t match was a hobo.

I was voted as one of the top 25 guest stars in the entire history of the show. So I guess being second is not so bad!

How do you measure your life? What moments have changed your life … or will change your life? Are you living or existing?

From space there were no observable borders between nations, no observable reasons for the wars we were leaving behind.

Did the Pilgrims on the Mayflower sit around Plymouth Rock waiting for a return ship to England? Absolutely not! They traveled to the New World to settle. And that’s what I hope we will be doing on Mars. When you go to Mars, you need to have made the decision that you’re there permanently. The more people we have there, the more it can become a sustainable environment. Except for very rare exceptions, the people who go to Mars shouldn’t be coming back. Once you get on the surface, you’re there, helping to build a colony.

But failure is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign that you are alive and growing.

Bravery comes along as a gradual accumulation of discipline