“Pick out a good father and mother, and begin life in Ohio."
Wilbur claims his fame and his brother’s fame was the result of the combination of being born in the right place and having the right parents. The Wright brothers were born in Ohio, a state proud for giving the nation four presidents and for producing one of the most important scientists in America, Thomas Edison. The people living in Ohio were described as being idealists and for having many dreams and revolutionary ideas. Apart from being born in the right place, the Wright brothers also had the good luck of having parents that approved of their dreams and of having parents who supported their ideas and who encouraged their children to follow their dreams. When Katherine talks about their mother, she mentions how the mother used to carefully take everything made by the boys and put it on a shelf as if to not be thrown away or destroyed. This care for the children’s inventions made the boys follow their dreams and made them believe in themselves.
"Carelessness and overconfidence are usually more dangerous than deliberately accepted risks."
Once Wilbur arrived at Kitty Hawk, he sent a few letters to his father, describing the conditions he was facing there. Wilbur made sure to convince his father he was not there to take unnecessary risks but rather to study the conditions and make adjustments if necessary. According to him, the people before them failed because they were overconfident, believing too much in themselves and not listening to what the others had to say. Wilbur promised to avoid this flaw and to try and maintain a healthy way of thinking, taking risks only when he was sure it would not make himself be in danger unnecessarily.
"One is to get on him and learn by actual practice how each motion and trick may be best met; the other is to sit on a fence and watch the beast a while, and then retire to the house and at leisure figure out the best way of overcoming his jumps and kicks."
During his first speech, Wilbur compared flying and learning how to fly with trying to tame a wild horse. He explained to the audience that a person could chose two different ways of approaching the problem. One person could decide to sit and watch the horse from a safe distance and then retreat and try to solve the problem and think how to tame the horse without actually having any type of contact with the horse. The second method, is the one in which a person gets involved hands on, touching the horse, being near it and trying to understand how to tame it. This manner, according to Wilbur, was the right one as the person sitting on the sides and watching could never fully understand how to tame the horse. While the first method was the safest, it was also the one that ended up not producing any type of result. Through this, Wilbur wanted to suggest that only thinking about flying would not solve the existing problems and that one must get involved completely if he or she wants to see some positive results.
