Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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

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

“The important thing is to strive toward a goal which is not immediately visible. That goal is not the concern of the mind, but of the spirit.”

“It is not by way of language that I shall transmit what is within me; for it is inexpressible in words. I can but signify this insofar as you may understand it through other channels than the spoken word; by love's miracle or because, born of the same God, we are akin. Else I have to drag it out, laboriously--that sunken world within me. And thus, as my clumsiness avails, I display this or that aspect alone--as in the case of my mountain, of which I may say merely that it is high. But it is far more than that, and behind those weak words I have in mind the far-flung glory of the night when one stands on the heights, alone and shivering, amongst the stars.”

“The first stars tremble as if shimmering in green water. Hours must pass before their glimmer hardens into the frozen glitter of diamonds. I shall have a long wait before I witness the soundless frolic of the shooting stars. In the profound darkness of certain nights I have seen the sky streaked with so many trailing sparks that it seemed to me a great gale must be blowing through the outer heavens. ”

“Sitting in the flickering light of the candles on this kerchief of sand, on this village square, we waited in the night. We were waiting for the rescuing dawn - or for the Moors. Something, I know not what, lent this night a savor of Christmas. We told stories, we joked, we sang songs. In the air there was that slight fever that reigns over a gaily prepared feast. And yet we were infinitely poor. Wind, sand, and stars. The austerity of Trappists. But on this badly lighted cloth, a handful of men who possessed nothing in the world but their memories were sharing invisible riches. ”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“What he had yearned to embrace was not the flesh but a down spirit, a spark, the impalpable angel that inhabits the flesh.”

“You're beautiful, but you're empty...One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she's the one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass, since she's the one I sheltered behind the screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.”

“C'est le temps que tu a perdu pour ta rose qui fait ta rose si importante.”

“J'y gagne, dit le renard, a cause de la couleur du ble.”

“That's the way they are. You must not hold it against them. Children should be very understanding of grown-ups.”

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

“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.”

“At a glance I can distinguish China from Arizona. If one gets lost in the night, such knowledge is valuable.”

“All grown-ups were once children... but only few of them remember it.”

“They never say to you, 'What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?' Instead, they demand 'How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much money does his father make?' Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.”

“In anything at all, 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.”

“You - you alone will have the stars as no one else has them...In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night...You - only you - will have stars that can laugh.”

“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.”

“La perfection est atteinte, non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter, mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retirer.”

“Sólo se ve bien con el corazón; lo esencial es invisible para los ojos."Fue el tiempo que pasaste con tu rosa lo que la hizo tan importante."Los niños han de tener mucha tolerancia con los adultos.”

“But on your tiny planet, my little prince, all you need do is move your chair a few steps. You can see the day end and the twilight falling whenever you like..."One day," you said to me, "I saw the sunset forty-four times!" And a little later you added: "You know, one loves the sunset, when one is so sad..." "Were you so sad, then?" I asked, "on the day of the forty-four sunsets?" But the little prince made no reply.”

“Fais de ta vie un rêve, et d'un rêve, une réalité.”

“Si quelqu'un aime une fleur qui n'existe qu'à un exemplaire dans les millions et les millions d'étoiles, ça suffit pour qu'il soit heureux quand il les regarde.”

“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 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...”

“I believe that for his escape he took advantage of the migration of a flock of wild birds.”

“On a day of burial there is no perspective--for space itself is annihilated. Your dead friend is still a fragmentary being. The day you bury him is a day of chores and crowds, of hands false or true to be shaken, of the immediate cares of mourning. The dead friend will not really die until tomorrow, when silence is round you again. Then he will show himself complete, as he was--to tear himself away, as he was, from the substantial you. Only then will you cry out because of him who is leaving and whom you cannot detain.”

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

“It is another of the miraculous things about mankind that there is no pain nor passion that does not radiate to the ends of the earth. Let a man in a garret but burn with enough intensity and he will set fire to the world.”

“And now of a sudden my illusion vanished. What was my body to me? A kind of flunkey in my service. Let my anger wax hot, my love grow exalted, my hatred collect in me, and the boasted solidarity between me and my body was gone.Your son is in a burning house. Nobody can hold you back. You may burn up, but what do you think of that? You are ready to bequeath the rags of your body to any man who will take them. You discover that what you set so much store by is trash. You would sell your hand, if need be, to give a hand to a friend. It is in your act that you exist, not in your body. Your act is yourself, and there is no other you. Your body belongs to you: it is not you. Are you about to strike an enemy? No threat of bodily harm can hold you back. You? It is the death of your enemy that is you. You? It is the rescue of your child that is you. In that moment you exchange yourself against something else; and you have no feeling tat you lost by the exchange. Your members? Tools. A tool snaps in your hand: how important is that tool? You exchange yourself against the death of your enemy, the rescue of your child, the recovery of your patient, the perfection of your theorem...Your true significance becomes dazzlingly evident. Your true name is duty, hatred, love, child, theorem. There is no other you than this.”

“A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them.”

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

“Aqueles que passam por nós não vão sós, não nos deixam sós. Deixam um pouco de si, levam um pouco de nós”

“So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . ."Yes, that is so," said the fox.But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.Yes, that is so," said the fox.Then it has done you no good at all!"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields.”

“If Someone wants a sheep, then that means that he exists.”

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

“You see, one loves the sunset when one is so sad.”

“Look at the sky. Ask yourselves: Has the sheep eaten the flower, yes or no? And you will see how everything changes...”

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

“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...”

“I ought not to have listened to her,' he confided to me one day. 'One never ought to listen to the flowers. One should simply look at them and breathe their fragrance. Mine perfumed all my planet. But I did not know how to take pleasure in all her grace.”

“I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things. ”

“And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure . . . And your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them, 'Yes, the stars always make me laugh!' And they will think you are crazy. It will be a very shabby trick that I shall have played on you...”

“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.”

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