Antoine de Saint-Exupery Quotes
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The one thing that matters is the effort. It continues, whereas the end to be attained is but an illusion of the climber, as he fares on and on from crest to crest; and once the goal is reached it has no meaning.
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A pilot's business is with the wind, and with the stars, with night, with sand, with the sea. He strives to outwit the forces of nature. He stares with expectancy for the coming of the dawn the way a gardener awaits the coming of spring. He looks forward to port as a promised land, and truth for him is what lives in the stars.
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You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.
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Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.
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You're beautiful, but you're empty.... No one could die for you.
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Confuse not love with the raptures of possession, which bring the cruellest of sufferings. For, notwithstanding the general opinion, love does not cause suffering: what causes it is the sense of ownership, which is love's opposite.
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One man may hit the mark, another blunder; but heed not these distinctions. Only from the alliance of the one, working with and through the other, are great things born.
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What do we mean by setting a man free? You cannot free a man who dwells in a desert and is an unfeeling brute.
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The seed haunted by the sun never fails to find its way between the stones in the ground. And the pure logician, if no sun draws him forth, remains entangled in his logic.
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I did not know how to reach him, how to catch up with him... The land of tears is so mysterious.
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We do not pray for immortality, but only not to see our acts and all things stripped suddenly of all their meaning; for then it is the utter emptiness of everything reveals itself.
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To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible.
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The flower you single out is a rejection of all other flowers; nevertheless, only on these terms is it beautiful.
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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.
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Man is a knot into which relationships are tied.
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No truth is proved, no truth achieved, by argument, and the ready-made truths men offer you are mere conveniences or drugs to make you sleep.
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Defeat may prove to have been the only path to resurrection, despite its ugliness.
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True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.
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Once you are my friend, I am responsible for you.
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When you give yourself, you receive more than you give.
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Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.
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Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
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Mad is the man who is forever gritting his teeth against that granite block, complete and changeless, of the past.
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And they heard the roaring thunder of a third brilliantly lighted express. "Are they pursuing the first travelers?" demanded the little prince. "They are pursuing nothing at all," said the switchman. "They are asleep in there, or if they are not asleep they are yawning. Only the children are flattening their noses against the windowpanes." "Only the children know what they are looking for," said the little prince. "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..." "They are lucky," the switchman said.