Antoine De Saint Exupery Quotes - Page 2

Maybe those sailors will write bad poems, but the same men would have kept dull diaries, too. The problem has to do not with the evidence but with the witness. The point is not the adventure but the adventurer. Reality cannot be directly rendered. Reality is a pile of bricks that can assume many forms.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
The grandeur of a profession is...above all, uniting men: there is only one true luxury, that of human relationships.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
if a sheep eats bushes does it eat flowers too?a sheep eats whatever it findseven a flower with thorn?even a flower with thorns.then what's the good of thorns?
Antoine De Saint Exupery
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.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
And if not for the caterpillars and butterflies, who will I talk to? You'll be far away. And as for larger creatures, I'm not afraid. I have my thorns...to protect me.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
That will be so amusing! You will have five hundred million little bells,and I shall have five hundred million springs of fresh water...
Antoine De Saint Exupery
My star will just be one of the stars, for you. And so you will love to watch all the stars in the heavens...they will all be your friends."-the little prince
Antoine De Saint Exupery
Supposing I know of a flower that is absolutely unique, that is nowhere to be found except on my planet, and any minute that flower could accidentally be eaten up by a little lamb, isn't that important? If a person loves a flower that is the only one of its kind on all the millions and millions of stars, then gazing at the night sky is enough to make him happy. He says to himself "My flower is out there somewhere." But if the lamb eats the flower, then suddenly it's as if all the stars had stopped shining. Isn't that important?
Antoine De Saint Exupery
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.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
You - you alone will have the stars as no one else has them...
Antoine De Saint Exupery
How is it possible for one to own the stars?""To whom do they belong?" the businessman retorted, peevishly."I don't know. To nobody.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
When I opened my eyes I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with out-stretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake, still unaware that those depths were sky, having no roof between those depths and me, no branches to screen them, no root to cling to, I was seized with vertigo and felt myself as if flung forth and plunging downward like a diver.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
The fox is answering the Little Prince's question. What does that mean . . . tame? asks the Little Prince. Itmeans to establish ties. One only understands the things that one tames. Men have no more time to understand anything, they buy things all ready made at the shops, but there is no shop anywhere one can buy friendship.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
Well, I must endure the presence of two or three caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies. It seems that they are very beautiful.And if not the butterflies– and the caterpillars– who will call upon me? You will be far away. . . as for the large animals– I am not at all afraid of any of them. I have my claws.”And, navely, she showed her four thorns. Then she added:“Don’t linger like this. You have decided to go away. Now go!”For she did not want him to see her crying. She was such a proud flower. . .
Antoine De Saint Exupery
Words are the source of misunderstandings.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
If you come at four in the afternoon, I'll begin to be happy by three.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
It's hard luck always having to be a judge.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
If you are to be, you must begin by assuming responsibility.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the time for him to leave was approaching:"Oh!", said the fox. "I am going to cry.""It's your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any harm; but you wanted me to tame you...""I know," said the fox."And now you're going to cry!" said the little prince."I know," said the fox."So you have gained nothing from it at all!""Yes, I have gained something," said the fox, "because of the colour of the corn.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
Alone within the vast tribunal that is the stormy sky, the pilot is in contention for his mailbags with three elemental divinities: mountain, sea and storm.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams...
Antoine De Saint Exupery
All the stars are a riot of flowers.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
He fell as gently as a tree falls. There was not even any sound..
Antoine De Saint Exupery
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!
Antoine De Saint Exupery
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.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
In silence alone does a man's truth bind itself together and strike root.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
Why are you drinking? demanded the little prince."So that I may forget," replied the tippler."Forget what?" inquired the little prince, who was already sorry for him."Forget that I am ashamed," the tippler confessed, hanging his head."Ashamed of what?" insisted the little prince, who wanted to help him."Ashamed of drinking!
Antoine De Saint Exupery
Language is the source of misunderstandings.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
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.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
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.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
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.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
there is no growth except in the fulfillment of obligations
Antoine De Saint Exupery
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.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
To forget a friend is sad. Not everyone has had a friend.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
Where are the people?” resumed the little prince at last. “It’s a little lonely in the desert…” “It is lonely when you’re among people, too,” said the snake.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
I picked up one and then a second and then a third of these stones, finding them at about the rate of one stone to the acre. And here is where my adventure became magical, for in a striking foreshortening of time that embraced thousands of years, I had become the witness of this miserly rain from the stars. the marvel of marvels was that there on the rounded back of the planet, between this magnetic sheet and those stars, a human consciousness was present in which as in a mirror that rain could be reflected.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
Men? One never knows where to find them. The wind blows them away. They have no roots, and that makes their life very difficult.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
I may be a little like the grown-ups. I must have grown old.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
When one wishes to play the wit, he sometimes wanders a little from the truth.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
One day," you said to me, "I saw the sunset forty-four times!"And a little later you added:"You know-- one loves the sunet, 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.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
I did not know what to say to him. I felt awkward and blundering. I did not know how I could reach him, where I could overtake him and go on hand in hand with him once more.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
I did not know how to reach him, how to catch up with him... The land of tears is so mysterious.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
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! ...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 at 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 . . .
Antoine De Saint Exupery
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...
Antoine De Saint Exupery
The villages were lighting up, constellations that greeted each other across the dusk. And, at the touch of his finger, his flying-lights flashed back a greeting to them. The earth grew spangled with light signals as each house lit its star, searching the vastness of the night as a lighthouse sweeps the sea. Now every place that sheltered human life was sparkling. And it rejoiced him to enter into this one night with a measured slowness, as into an anchorage.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
He is not admiring the colours of the earth and sky, the marks of the wind on the sea, the gilded clouds of twilight; they are the objects of his meditation.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
If a composer suffers from loss of sleep and his sleeplessness induces him to turn out masterpieces, what a profitable loss it is!
Antoine De Saint Exupery
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.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
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.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
When you've finished your own toilet in the morning, then it is time to attend to the toilet of your planet, just so, with the greatest care.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
What I see here is nothing but a shell. What is most important is invisible...
Antoine De Saint Exupery
The stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen... The desert is beautiful," the little prince added. And that was true. I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams... "What makes the desert beautiful," said the little prince, "is that somewhere it hides a well..." I was astonished by a sudden understanding of that mysterious radiation of the sands.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat...
Antoine De Saint Exupery
This water was indeed a different thing from ordinary nourishment. Its sweetness was born of the walk under the stars, the song of the pulley, the effort of my arms. It was good for the heart, like a present.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
No one is ever satisfied where he is....Only the children know what they’re looking for....
Antoine De Saint Exupery
I shall never again admire a merely brave man.
Antoine De Saint Exupery