Neil Armstrong Quotes

إنها خطوة صغيرة للإنسان وقفزة عملاقة للبشرية

We were involved in doing what many thought to be impossible, putting humans on Earth's moon.

Our autopilot was taking us into a very large crater, about the size of a big football stadium with steep slopes on the crater covered with very large rocks about the size of automobiles that was not the kind of place that I wanted to try to make the first landing.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am in the position of a pilot without his checklist, so I'll have to wing it a bit. ... [Prior to the Apollo missions,] no one knew what kind of person could be persuaded to take the trip. Prisoners were suggested. Soldiers could be ordered. Photographers could take pictures — and they're expendable. Doctors understood the limits of human physiology. Finally, both sides picked pilots.

History is a sequence of random events and unpredictable choices, which is why the future is so difficult to foresee.

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.

I can't hear it. But the 'a' is implied, so I'm happy if they just put it in parentheses. (1982)

I would hope that history would grant me leeway for dropping the syllable and understand that it was certainly intended, even if it was not said — although it might actually have been. (2008)

Shoot for the stars but if you happen to miss shoot for the moon instead.

I am comfortable with my level of public discourse.

Research is creating new knowledge.

Space has not changed but technology has, in many cases, improved dramatically. A good example is digital technology where today's cell phones are far more powerful than the computers on the Apollo Command Module and Lunar Module that we used to navigate to the moon and operate all the spacecraft control systems.

A century hence, 2000 may be viewed as quite a primitive period in human history. It's something to hope for. ... I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer — born under the second law of thermodynamics, steeped in the steam tables, in love with free-body diagrams, transformed by Laplace, and propelled by compressible flow. As an engineer, I take a substantial amount of pride in the accomplishments of my profession.

"Knowledge is fundamental to all human achievements and progress. It is both the key and the quest that advances mankind. The search for knowledge is what brought men to the moon; but it took knowledge already acquired to make it possible to get there.

How we use the knowledge we gain determines our progress on earth, in space or on the moon. Your library is a storehouse for mind and spirit. Use it well."

[Letters of Note; Troy (MI, USA) Public Library, 1971]

The single observation I would offer for your consideration is that some things are beyond your control. You can lose your health to illness or accident. You can lose your wealth to all manner of unpredictable sources. What are not easily stolen from you without your cooperation are your principles and your values. They are your most important possessions and, if carefully selected and nurtured, will well serve you and your fellow man.

That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind