Our people page on Anne Morrow Lindbergh

More from and about
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
(biographical info at bottom of page)

It takes as much courage to have tried and failed
as it does to have tried and succeeded.

After all, I don't see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood.

I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable. Only when one is connected to one's inner core is one connected to others. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be re-found through solitude.

One comes in the end to realize that there is no permanent pure-relationship and there should not be. It is not even something to be desired. The pure relationship is limited, in space and in time. In its essence it implies exclusion. It excludes the rest of life, other relationships, other sides of personality, other responsibilities, other possibilities in the future. It excludes growth.

But I want first of all – in fact, as an end to these other desires – to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact – to borrow from the languages of the saints – to live "in grace" as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony. I am seeking perhaps what Socrates asked for in the prayer from the Phaedrus when he said, "May the outward and inward man be at one." I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God.

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in
demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship
lies neither in looking back to what it was, nor forward to what it might be,
but living in the present and accepting it as it is now.

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Intellectuals are constantly betrayed by their vanity. Godlike they blandly assume
that t hey can express everything in words; whereas the things one loves,
lives, and dies for are not, in the last analysis completely expressible in words.

Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of
quiet in a crowded day - like writing a poem, or saying a prayer.

If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass,
you live more richly those moments.

Don't wish me happiness--I don't expect to be happy. It's gotten beyond that,
somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor--I will need them all.

One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach.
One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the widow of aviator and conservationist Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr., was a noted writer and aviation pioneer. Born June 22, 1906 in Englewood, New Jersey, Lindbergh was the daughter of businessman, ambassador, and U.S. Senator Dwight Morrow and poet and women's education advocate Elizabeth Cutter Morrow. Her family spent summers at the seashore: Martha's Vineyard, Cape Cod and later on the island of North Haven off the coast of Maine. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Smith College in 1928, and married Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr., on May 27, 1929.

Six children were born to the Lindberghs -- Charles A., III (deceased, 1932), Jon, Land, Anne (deceased, 1993), Scott and Reeve.

Much time during the early years of the Lindberghs' marriage was spent flying. Anne served as her husband's co-pilot, navigator and radio operator on history-making explorations, charting potential air routes for commercial airlines. They made air surveys across the continent and in the Caribbean to pioneer Pan American's air mail service. In 1931, they journeyed, in a single-engine airplane, over uncharted routes from Canada and Alaska to Japan and China, which she chronicled in her first book, North to the Orient. They then completed, in the same single-engine Lockheed "Sirius," a five-and-one-half-month, 30,000-mile survey of North and South Atlantic air routes in 1933 (the subject of Anne Lindbergh's book, Listen! the Wind). Charles characterized this expedition as more difficult and hazardous than his epic New York-to-Paris flight in 1927 in the "Spirit of St. Louis."

The National Geographic Society awarded its Hubbard Gold Medal to Anne Lindbergh in 1934 for her accomplishments in 40,000 miles of exploratory flying over five continents with her husband. A year earlier, she had been honored with the Cross of Honor of the U.S. Flag Association for her part in the survey of transatlantic air routes. In 1993, Women in Aerospace presented her with a special Aerospace Explorer Award in recognition of her achievements and contributions to the aerospace field.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh was also the first licensed woman glider pilot in the United States.

In addition to North to the Orient and Listen! the Wind, Anne Lindbergh is the author of 11 other published books. They include Earth Shine, in which she wrote of being at Cape Kennedy for the first moon-orbiting flight and how that Apollo 8 flight and the pictures it sent back of Earth gave humankind "a new sense of Earth's richness and beauty;" The Steep Ascent, a novel that tells the story of a perilous flight made by a husband and wife; the inspirational and widely read Gift from the Sea, perhaps her best-known work; and five volumes of diaries and letters from the years 1922-1944.

Smith College, Amherst College, the University of Rochester and Gustavus Adolphus College have all presented honorary degrees to Mrs. Lindbergh. In addition, she has also been inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame, the National Women's Hall of Fame, and the Aviation Hall of Fame of New Jersey. She is also a recipient of the Christopher Award for the fifth volume of her diaries, War Within and Without.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh died February 7, 2001 at her second home in Vermont.

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