Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and the first person to walk on the Moon. Born in Ohio, Armstrong’s fascination with aviation led him to become a test pilot before joining NASA in 1962. On July 20, 1969, as the commander of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission, Armstrong descended from the lunar module and uttered the iconic words, “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” This historic event marked humanity’s first lunar landing. Armstrong’s contributions to space exploration earned him accolades, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Post-NASA, he taught aerospace engineering and remained an influential figure in the space community until his passing in 2012.
Neil Armstrong Quotes
1. “This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
— Neil Armstrong
2. “Research is creating new knowledge.”
— Neil Armstrong
3. “Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
— Neil Armstrong
4. “Geologists have a saying – rocks remember.”
— Neil Armstrong
5. “I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”
— Neil Armstrong
6. “Shoot for the stars but if you happen to miss shoot for the moon instead.”
— Neil Armstrong
7. “Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.”
— Neil Armstrong
8. “The Eagle has landed.”
— Neil Armstrong
9. “Ever since I was a little boy, I dreamed I would do something important in aviation.”
— Neil Armstrong
10. “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.”
— Neil Armstrong
11. “It’s a great thing for a man to walk on the moon. But it’s a greater thing for God to walk on the earth.”
— Neil Armstrong
12. “I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer, born under the second law of thermodynamics, steeped in steam tables, in love with free-body diagrams, transformed by Laplace and propelled by compressible flow.”
— Neil Armstrong
13. “You’ve got to expect things are going to go wrong. And we always need to prepare ourselves for handling the unexpected.”
— Neil Armstrong
14. “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.”
— Neil Armstrong
15. “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon. July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind.”
— Neil Armstrong
16. “Man must understand his universe in order to understand his destiny.”
— Neil Armstrong
17. “Good luck, Mr. Gorsky!”
— Neil Armstrong
18. “Fear is not an unknown emotion to us.”
— Neil Armstrong
19. “I hope you become comfortable with the use of logic without being deceived into concluding that logic will inevitably lead you to the correct conclusion.”
— Neil Armstrong
20. “Start at the end and work back.”
— Neil Armstrong
21. “I guess we all like to be recognized not for one piece of fireworks, but for the ledger of our daily work.”
— Neil Armstrong
22. “The important achievement of Apollo was demonstrating that humanity is not forever chained to this planet and our visions go rather further than that and our opportunities are unlimited.”
— Neil Armstrong
23. “Well, I think we tried very hard not to be overconfident because when you get overconfident, that’s when something snaps up and bites you.”
— Neil Armstrong
24. “History will remember the twentieth century for two technological developments: atomic energy and space flight.”
— Neil Armstrong
25. “It never hurts to have friends around, so that’s why you’d form a crew.”
— Neil Armstrong
26. “Gliders, sail planes, they’re wonderful flying machines. It’s the closest you can come to being a bird.”
— Neil Armstrong
27. “We had hundreds of thousands of people all dedicated to doing the perfect job, and I think they did about as well as anyone could ever have expected.”
— Neil Armstrong
28. “No matter when you had been to this spot before, a thousand years ago or a hundred thousand years ago, or if you came back to it a million years from now, you would see some different things each time, but the scene would be generally the same.”
— Neil Armstrong
29. “I thought the attractions of being an astronaut were actually, not so much the Moon, but flying in a completely new medium.”
— Neil Armstrong
30. “People love conspiracy theories.”
— Neil Armstrong
31. “I can honestly say – and it’s a big surprise to me – that I have never had a dream about being on the moon.”
— Neil Armstrong
32. “Every flying machine has its own unique characteristics, some good, some not so good. Pilots naturally fly the craft in such a manner as to take advantage of its good characteristics and avoid the areas where it is not so good.”
— Neil Armstrong
33. “The one thing I regret was that my work required an enormous amount of my time, and a lot of travel.”
— Neil Armstrong
34. “In flying, the probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.”
— Neil Armstrong
35. “I am, and ever will be, a white socks, pocket protector, nerdy engineer.”
— Neil Armstrong
36. “I was elated, ecstatic, and extremely surprised that we were successful.”
— Neil Armstrong
37. “I believe that the message of Apollo XI was that in the spirit of Apollo, a free and open spirit, you can attack a very difficult goal and achieve it, if you can all agree and work together to achieve that goal.”
— Neil Armstrong
38. “It’s a brilliant surface in that sunlight. The horizon seems quite close to you because the curvature is so much more pronounced than here on earth. It’s an interesting place to be. I recommend it.”
— Neil Armstrong
39. “Now and then I miss the excitement about being in the cockpit of an airplane and doing new things.”
— Neil Armstrong
40. “Damn I really did it. I blew the first words on the moon, didn’t I?”
— Neil Armstrong
41. “I think if there was anything I learned from our skipper was that it’s not how you look; it’s how you perform.”
— Neil Armstrong
42. “When you deejay a party, a good DJ’s job is to take care of the crowd. If people want to hear Britney Spears, that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
— Neil Armstrong
43. “I believe that the Good Lord gave us a finite number of heartbeats and I’m damned if I’m going to use up mine running up and down a street.”
— Neil Armstrong
44. “Science has not yet mastered prophecy. We predict too much for the next year and yet far too little for the next 10.”
— Neil Armstrong
45. “The regret on our side is, they used to say years ago, we are reading about you in science class. Now they say, we are reading about you in history class.”
— Neil Armstrong
46. “Society’s future will depend on a continuous improvement program for the human character. And what will that future bring? I do not know, but it will be exciting.”
— Neil Armstrong
47. “All in all, for someone who was immersed in, fascinated by, and dedicated to flight, I was disappointed by the wrinkle in history that had brought me along one generation late. I had missed all the great times and adventures in flight.”
— Neil Armstrong
48. “This blowing dust became increasingly thicker. It was very much like landing in a fast-moving ground fog.”
— Neil Armstrong
49. “Lindsay Lohan isn’t a DJ, but because of her celebrity power she can do a gig somewhere, put her name on a flyer, and she’ll probably bring in more people and make more money than I ever will.”
— Neil Armstrong
50. “It’s a strange, eerie sensation to fly a lunar landing trajectory not difficult, but somewhat complex and unforgiving.”
— Neil Armstrong
