Top 5 Quotes & Sayings by Alberto Santos-Dumont

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont.
Last updated on April 20, 2025.
Alberto Santos-Dumont

Alberto Santos-Dumont was a Brazilian aeronaut, sportsman, inventor, and one of the few people to have contributed significantly to the early development of both lighter-than-air and heavier-than-air aircraft. The heir of a wealthy family of coffee producers, he dedicated himself to aeronautical study and experimentation in Paris, where he spent most of his adult life. He designed, built, and flew the first powered airships and won the Deutsch Prize in 1901, when he flew around the Eiffel Tower in his airship No. 6, becoming one of the most famous people in the world in the early 20th century.

I never thought that my creation, would allow brothers to kill brothers. (after seeing his invention being used in war, The Airplane) Alberto Santos-Dumont — © Alberto Santos-Dumont
I never thought that my creation, would allow brothers to kill brothers. (after seeing his invention being used in war, The Airplane) Alberto Santos-Dumont
To propel a dirigible balloon through the air is like pushing a candle through a brick wall.
Villages and woods, meadows and chateaux, pass across the moving scene, out of which the whistling of locomotives throws sharp notes. These faint, piercing sounds, together with the yelping and barking of dogs, are the only noises that reach one through the depths of the upper air. The human voice cannot mount up into these boundless solitudes. Human beings look like ants along the white lines that are highways; and the rows of houses look like children's playthings.
Now my playmates never failed to wink and smile mockingly at me when one of them called 'Man flies!' for at the word I would always lift my finger very high, as a sign of absolute conviction; and I refused with energy to pay the forfeit. The more they laughed at me, the happier I was, hoping that some day the laugh would be on my side.
The balloon seems to stand still in the air while the earth flies past underneath.
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