Antoine de Saint-Exupery Quotes
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The tree is more than first a seed, then a stem, then a living trunk, and then dead timber. The tree is a slow, enduring force straining to win the sky.
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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.
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GOOD MORNING," said the little prince. "Good Morning," said the salesclerk. This was a salesclerk who sold pills invented to quench thirst. Swallow one a week and you no longer feel any need to drink. "Why do you sell these pills?" "They save so much time," the salesclerk said. "Experts have calculated that you can save fifty-three minutes a week." "And what do you do with those fifty-three minutes?" "Whatever you like." "If I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked," the little prince said to himself, "I'd walk very slowly toward a water fountain.
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I don't understand these people anymore, that travel the commuter-trains to their dormitory towns. These people that call themselves human, but, by a pressure they do not feel, are forced to do their work like ants. With what do they fill their time when they are free of work on their silly little Sundays? I am very fortunate in my profession. I feel like a farmer, with the airstrips as my fields. Those that have once tasted this kind of fare will not forget it ever. Not so, my friends?
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We don’t ask to be eternal beings. We only ask that things do not lose all their meaning.
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No one has tamed you and you haven't tamed anyone.Your'e the way my fox was. He was just a fox like a hundred thousand others. But I've made him my friend, and now he's the only fox in the world.
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Vain is the hope of finding pleasure in that which one has hitherto disdained; as when the warrior hopes to find pleasure in the joys of the sedentaries.
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Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.
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The friend within the man is that part of him which belongs to you and opens to you a door which never, perhaps, is opened to another. Such a friend is true, and all he says is true; and he loves you even if he hates you in other mansions of his heart.
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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.
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It is in your act that you exist, not in your body. Your act is yourself, and there is no other you.
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A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them.
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Nothing can match the treasure of common memories, of trials endured together, of quarrels and reconciliations and generous emotions. It is idle, having planted an acorn in the morning, to expect that afternoon to sit in the shade of the oak.
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One can be a brother only in something. Where there is no tie that binds men, men are not united but merely lined up.
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True, it is evil that a single man should crush the herd, but see not there the worse form of slavery, which is when the herd crushes out the man.
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When the body sinks into death, the essence of man is revealed. Man is a knot, a web, a mesh into which relationships are tied. Only those relationships matter. The body is an old crock that nobody will miss. I have never known a man to think of himself when dying. Never.
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What was my body to me? A kind of flunkey in my service. Let but my anger wax hot, my love grow exalted, my hatred collect in me, and that boasted solidarity between me and my body was gone.
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There is no liberty except the liberty of some one making his way towards something. Such a man can be set free if you will teach him the meaning of thirst, and how to trace a path to a well. Only then will he embark upon a course of action that will not be without significance. You could not liberate a stone if there were no law of gravity - for where will the stone go, once it is quarried?
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A smile is often the key thing.One is paid with a smile. One is rewarded with a smile. One is brightened by a smile. And the quality of a smile can make one die.
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There is no growth except in the fulfillment of obligations.
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Freedom and constraint are two aspects of the same necessity, which is to be what one is and no other.
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I shall never again admire a merely brave man.
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It is the duty of the ship's captain to make port, cost what it may.
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When someone blushes, doesn't that mean 'yes'?