Antoine de Saint-Exupery Quotes
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It's a question of discipline,' the little prince told me later on. 'when you've finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet. you must be sure you pull up the baobabs regularly, as soon as you can tell them apart from the rosebushes, which they closely resemble when they're very young. It's very tedious work, but very easy.
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All of us have had the experience of a sudden joy that came when nothing in the world had forewarned us of its coming - a joy so thrilling that if it was born of misery we remembered even the misery with tenderness.
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It is not for us to forecast the future, but to shape it.
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If some one 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?
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He who would travel happy must travel lite.
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A sky as pure as water bathed the stars and brought them out.
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But games always cover something deep and intense, else there would be no excitement in them, no pleasure, no power to stir us.
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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.
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You know...my flower...I'm responsible for her. And she's so weak! And so naive. She has four ridiculous thorns to defend her against the world.
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One's suffering disappears when one lets oneself go, when one yields - even to sadness.
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If I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water.
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The Beauty of the Mountain is hidden for all those who try to discover it from the top, supposing that, one way or an other, one can reach this place directly. The Beauty of the Mountain reveals only to those who climbed it.
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One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed.
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Only the children know what they are looking for.
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The wind in the grain is the caress to the spouse; it is the hand of peace stroking her hair.
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Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas. Defeat may prove to have been the only path to resurrection, despite its ugliness. I take it for granted that to create a tree I condemn a seed to rot. If the first act of resistance comes too late it is doomed to defeat. But it is, nevertheless, the awakening of resistance. Life may grow from it as from a seed.
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What he had yearned to embrace was not the flesh but a down spirit, a spark, the impalpable angel that inhabits the flesh.
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Only the children know what they are looking for. They waste their time over a rag doll and it becomes very important to them; and if anybody takes it away from them, they cry.
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Peace dies when the framework is ripped apart. When there is no longer a place that is yours in the world. When you know no longer where your friend is to be found.
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Treason implies responsibility for something, control over something, influence upon something, knowledge of something. Treason in our time is a proof of genius. Why, I want to know, are not traitors decorated?
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Nothing can match the treasure of common memories.
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I am who I am and I have the need to be.
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It is not a question of living dangerously. That formula is too arrogant, too presumptuous. I don't care much for bull-fighters. It's not the danger I love. I know what I love. It is life itself.
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It is always in the midst, in the epicenter, of your troubles that you find serenity.