Antoine De Saint Exupery Quotes - Page 2

But the conceited man did not hear him. Conceited people never hear anything but praise.

Why are you drinking? demanded the little prince."So that I may forget," replied the tippler."Forget what?" inquired the little prince, who was already sorry for him."Forget that I am ashamed," the tippler confessed, hanging his head."Ashamed of what?" insisted the little prince, who wanted to help him."Ashamed of drinking!

For after all, why do we go on fighting? If we die for democracy then we must be one of the democracies. Let the rest fight with us, if that is the case. But the most powerful of them, the only one that could save us, chooses to bide its time. Very good. That is its right. But by so doing, that democracy signifies that we are fighting for ourselves alone. And we go on fighting despite the assurance that we have lost the war. Why, then, do we go on dying? Out of despair? But there is no despair. You know nothing about defeat if you think there is room in it for despair.There is a verity that is higher than the pronouncements of the intelligence. There is a thing which pierces and governs us and which cannot be grasped by the intelligence. A tree has no language. We are a tree. There are truths which are evident, though not to be put into words. I do not die in order to obstruct the path of the invasion, for there is no shelter upon which I can fall back with those I love. I do not die to preserve my honor, since I deny that my honor is at stake, and I challenge the jurisdiction of my judge. Nor do I die out of desperation.

People where you live," the little prince said, "grow five thousand roses in one garden... yet they don't find what they're looking for...They don't find it," I answered.And yet what they're looking for could be found in a single rose, or a little water..."Of course," I answered.And the little prince added, "But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.

Good morning," said the little prince.Good morning," said the merchant.This was a merchant who sold pills that had been invented to quench thirst. You need only swallow one pill a week, and you would feel no need for anything to drink.Why are you selling those?" asked the little prince.Because they save a tremendous amount of time," said the merchant. "Computations have been made by experts. With these pills, you save fifty-three minutes in every week."And what do I do with those fifty-three minutes?"Anything you like..."As for me," said the little prince to himself, "if I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water.

That is the hardest thing of all. It is much harder to judge yourself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself, it's because you're truly a wise man.

I did not know what to say to him. I felt awkward and blundering. I did not know how I could reach him, where I could overtake him and go on hand in hand with him once more.

He who is different from me does not impoverish me - he enriches me. Our unity is constituted in something higher than ourselves - in Man... For no man seeks to hear his own echo, or to find his reflection in the glass.

One only understands the things that one tames,” said the fox. “Men haveno more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at theshops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and somen have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me. . .

No single event can awaken within us a stranger whose existence we had never suspected. To live is to be slowly born.

I picked up one and then a second and then a third of these stones, finding them at about the rate of one stone to the acre. And here is where my adventure became magical, for in a striking foreshortening of time that embraced thousands of years, I had become the witness of this miserly rain from the stars. the marvel of marvels was that there on the rounded back of the planet, between this magnetic sheet and those stars, a human consciousness was present in which as in a mirror that rain could be reflected.

When you've finished your own toilet in the morning, then it is time to attend to the toilet of your planet, just so, with the greatest care.

Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them

Let a man in a garret burn with enough intensity and he will set fire to the world.

Sometimes, there is no harm in putting off a piece of work until another day.

if a sheep eats bushes does it eat flowers too?a sheep eats whatever it findseven a flower with thorn?even a flower with thorns.then what's the good of thorns?

A single radio post still heard him. The only link between him and the world was a wave of music, a minor modulation. Not a lament, no cry, yet purest of sounds that ever spoke despair.

A goal without a plan is just a wish.

Only the unknown frightens men. But once a man has faced the unknown, that terror becomes the known.

But the vain man did not hear him. Vain men never hear anything but praise.

I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime.

Supposing I know of a flower that is absolutely unique, that is nowhere to be found except on my planet, and any minute that flower could accidentally be eaten up by a little lamb, isn't that important? If a person loves a flower that is the only one of its kind on all the millions and millions of stars, then gazing at the night sky is enough to make him happy. He says to himself "My flower is out there somewhere." But if the lamb eats the flower, then suddenly it's as if all the stars had stopped shining. Isn't that important?

No one is ever satisfied where he is.

This water was indeed a different thing from ordinary nourishment. Its sweetness was born of the walk under the stars, the song of the pulley, the effort of my arms. It was good for the heart, like a present.

The truth for a man, it's what makes him a man.

Mais, dans la mort d’un homme, un monde inconnu meurt, et je me demandais quelles étaient les images qui sombraient en lui.

And the little prince broke into a lovely peal of laughter, which irritated me very much. I like my misfortunes to be taken seriously.

It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory and in creative action that man finds his supreme joy.

Freedom and constraint are two aspects of the same necessity the necessity of being the man you are and not another. You are free to be that man but not free to be another.

One must command from each what each can preform.

Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction.

I remembered the fox. One runs the risk of crying a bit if one allows oneself to be tamed.

Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.

A chief is a man who assumes responsibility. He says 'I was beaten' he does not say 'My men were beaten.'

Where are the people?” resumed the little prince at last. “It’s a little lonely in the desert…” “It is lonely when you’re among people, too,” said the snake.

The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves but in our attitude towards them.

He fell as gently as a tree falls. There was not even any sound..

Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life. It is not something discovered it is something moulded.

You are beautiful, but you are empty. One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you --- the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars; because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or bloated, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.

The stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen... The desert is beautiful," the little prince added. And that was true. I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams... "What makes the desert beautiful," said the little prince, "is that somewhere it hides a well..." I was astonished by a sudden understanding of that mysterious radiation of the sands.

I may be a little like the grown-ups. I must have grown old.

When I opened my eyes, I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with outstretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake, still unaware that those depths were sky, having no roof between those depths and me, no branches to screen them, no root to cling to, I was seized with vertigo and felt myself as if flung forth and plunging downward like a diver. But I did not fall. From nape to heel I discovered myself bound to earth. I felt a sort of appeasement in surrendering to it my weight. Gravitation had become as sovereign as love. The earth, I felt, was supporting my back, sustaining me, lifting me up, transporting me through the immense void of night.

Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy ready-made things in the shops. But since there are no shops where you can buy friends, men no longer have any friends.

For millions of years flowers have been producing thorns. For millions of years sheep have been eating them all the same. And it's not serious, trying to understand why flowers go to such trouble to produce thorns that are good for nothing? It's not important, the war between the sheep and the flowers? It's no more serious and more important than the numbers that fat red gentleman is adding up? Suppose I happen to know a unique flower, one that exists nowhere in the world except on my planet, one that a little sheep can wipe out in a single bite one morning, just like that, without even realizing what he'd doing - that isn't important? If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that's enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars. He tells himself 'My flower's up there somewhere...' But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it's as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. And that isn't important?

If I am attempting to describe him, it is in order not to forget him. It is sad to forget a friend. Not every one has had a friend.

But silence continued in the layers of the earth, and this density that I could feel at my shoulders continued harmonious, sustained, unaltered through eternity. I lay there pondering my situation, lost in the desert, and in danger, naked between sky and sand and stars, withdrawn by too much silence from the poles of my life.

I looked about me. Luminous points glowed in the darkness. Cigarettes punctuated the humble meditations of worn old clerks. I heard them talking to one another in murmurs and whispers. They talked about illness, money, shabby domestic cares. And suddenly I had a vision of the face of destiny. Old bureaucrat, my comrade, it is not you who are to blame. No one ever helped you to escape. You, like a termite, built your peace by blocking up with cement every chink and cranny through which the light might pierce. You rolled yourself up into a ball in your genteel security, in routine, in the stifling conventions of provincial life, raising a modest rampart against the winds and the tides and the stars. You have chosen not to be perturbed by great problems, having trouble enough to forget your own fate as a man. You are not the dweller upon an errant planet and do not ask yourself questions to which there are no answers. Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and naught in you will ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the astronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning.

How is it possible for one to own the stars?""To whom do they belong?" the businessman retorted, peevishly."I don't know. To nobody.

Flowers are so inconsistent!

Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.

To forget a friend is sad. Not everyone has had a friend.

Words are the source of misunderstandings.

A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the time for him to leave was approaching:"Oh!", said the fox. "I am going to cry.""It's your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any harm; but you wanted me to tame you...""I know," said the fox."And now you're going to cry!" said the little prince."I know," said the fox."So you have gained nothing from it at all!""Yes, I have gained something," said the fox, "because of the colour of the corn.

The fox is answering the Little Prince's question. What does that mean . . . tame? asks the Little Prince. Itmeans to establish ties. One only understands the things that one tames. Men have no more time to understand anything, they buy things all ready made at the shops, but there is no shop anywhere one can buy friendship.

If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom.

You will have five hundred million little bells, and I shall have five hundred million springs of fresh water...

If you come at four in the afternoon, I'll begin to be happy by three.

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.