Antoine De Saint Exupery Quotes - Page 3

I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower... I think that she has tamed me...

If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-bloom with flowers...

It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.

Grown-ups love figures. When you talk to them about a new friend, they never ask questions about essential matters.

even so did you feel yourself swept away by that inward migration about which no one had ever said a word to you…A great wind swept through and delivered from the matrix the sleeping prince you sheltered- man within you. You are the equal of the musician composing his music, of the physicist extending the frontier of knowledge…you have reached an altitude where all loves are of the same stuff.

Go and have another look at the roses. And you will understand that yours is indeed unique in all the world.

As for the military advantage of such a bombardment, I simply cannot grasp it. I have seen housewives disemboweled, children mutilated; I have seen the old itinerant market crone sponge from her treasure the brains with which they were spattered. I have seen a janitor's wife come out of her cellar and douse the sullied pavement with a bucket of water, and I am still unable to understand what part these humble slaughterhouse accidents play in warfare.

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

It's the time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important...People have forgotten this truth, but you mustn't forget it. You become responsible forever for what you've tamed. You're responsible for your rose.

People have forgotten this truth," the fox said. "But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose.

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step but you have to take it.

Life has a meaning only if one barters it day by day for something other than itself.

What I see here is nothing but a shell. What is most important is invisible...

I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He has never smelled a flower. He has never looked at a star. He has never loved any one. He has never done anything in his life but add up figures. And all day he says over and over, just like you: 'I am busy with matters of consequence!' And that makes him swell up with pride. But he is not a man - he is a mushroom!

Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

When one wishes to play the wit, he sometimes wanders a little from the truth.

That will be so amusing! You will have five hundred million little bells,and I shall have five hundred million springs of fresh water...

But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you.

He is among those beings of great scope who spread their leafy branches willingly over broad horizons. To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible. It is to know shame at the sight of poverty which is not of our making. It is to be proud of a victory won by our comrades. It is to feel, as we place our stone, that we are contributing to the building of the world.

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

When someone blushes, doesn't that mean 'yes'?

The proof that the little prince existed is that he was charming, that he laughed, and that he was looking for a sheep. If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists.

Where are the men?” the little prince at last took up the conversationagain. “It is a little lonely in the desert. . . ”“It is also lonely among men,” the snake said.

War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus.

But in the machine of today we forget that motors are whirring: the motor, finally, has come to fulfill its function, which is to whirr as a heart beats - and we give no thought to the beating of our heart. Thus, precisely because it is perfect the machine dissembles its own existence instead of forcing itself upon our notice.

And the voice spoke even more deliberately: '...but remember what is under the ocean of clouds: eternity.'And suddenly that tranquil world, the world of such simple harmony that you discover as you rise above the clouds, took on an unfamiliar quality in my eyes. All that gentleness became a trap. In my mind's eye I saw that vast white trap laid out, right under my feet. Beneath it reigned neither the restlessness of men nor the living tumult and motion of cities, as one might have thought, but a silence that was even more absolute, a more final peace. That viscous whiteness was turning before my eyes into the boundary between the real and the unreal, between the known and the unknowable. And I was already beginning to sense that a spectacle has no meaning except when seen through a culture, a civilization, a professional craft.

I don't much like assuming the tone of a moralist. But the danger of baobabs is so little recognized, and the risks run by anyone who might get lost on an asteroid are so considerable, that for once I am making an exception to my habitual reserve.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

In silence alone does a man's truth bind itself together and strike root.

I am looking for friends. What does that mean -- tame?""It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties." "To establish ties?" "Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world....

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings.

A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us.

Love consists of not looking each other in the eye, but of looking outwardly in the same direction.

The field of consciousness is tiny. It accepts only one problem at a time. Get into a fist fight put your mind on the strategy of the fight and you will not feel the other fellow's punches.

Of course I love you. It is my fault that you have not known it all the while" (the flower to little prince)

All the stars are a riot of flowers.

She wished to appear only in the full radiance of her beauty. Oh yes, she was quite vain! And her mysterious adornment had lasted days and days. And then one morning, precisely at sunrise, she showed herself.

I did not know how to reach him, how to catch up with him... The land of tears is so mysterious.

You - you alone will have the stars as no one else has them...

She knew this man's smile, his gentle ways of love, but not his godlike fury in the storm. She might snare him in a fragile net of music, love and flowers, but, at each departure, he would break forth without, it seemed to her, the least regret.

If a composer suffers from loss of sleep and his sleeplessness induces him to turn out masterpieces, what a profitable loss it is!

But if you tame me, then weshall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, Ishall be unique in all the world.

The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.

Nothing is perfect," sighed the fox. "My life is very monotonous. I run after the chickens; the men run after me. All the chickens are the same; all the men are the same. Consequently, I get a little bored. But if you tame me, my days will be as if filled with sunlight. I shall know the sound of a footstep different from all the rest. ...You see the fields of corn? Well, I don't eat bread. Corn is of no use to me. Corn fields remind me of nothing. Which is sad. On the other hand, your hair is the colour of gold. So think how wonderful it will be when you have tamed me. The corn, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I will come to love the sound of the wind in the field of corn.The fox fell silent and looked steadily at the little prince for a long time."Please," he said, "tame me!

If you are to be, you must begin by assuming responsibility.

True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.

It is in your act that you exist not in your body. Your act is yourself and there is no other you.

there is no growth except in the fulfillment of obligations

I wonder,” he said, “whether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one day each one of us may find his own again...

To be a man is to feel that one's own stone contributes to building the edifice of the world.

The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her . . . I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her . . .

If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

Even though human life may be the most precious thing on earth, we always behave as if there were something of higher value than human life.

Experiences teaches us that to love is not to gaze at one another but to gaze together in the same direction.

No destiny attacks us from outside. But, within him, man bears his fate and there comes a moment when he knows himself vulnerable; and then, as in a vertigo, blunder upon blunder lures him.

What a space between men their spiritual natures create! A girl’s reverie isolates her from me, and how shall I enter it? What can one know of a girl that passes, slow steps homeward, out of thoughts, she can form an empire, locked up in her language, in the singing echoes of her memory. Born yesterday of the volcanoes, of greenswards, of brine of the sea, she walks here already half divine.

To be a man is precisely to be responsible.