Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Quotes

I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He has never smelled a flower. He has never looked at a star. He has never loved any one. He has never done anything in his life but add up figures. And all day he says over and over, just like you: 'I am busy with matters of consequence!' And that makes him swell up with pride. But he is not a man - he is a mushroom!

I'll look as if I'm dead, and that won't be true.'
I said nothing.
'You understand. It's too far. I can't take this body with me. It's too heavy.'
I said nothing.
'But it'll be like an old abandoned shell. There's nothing sad about an old shell...'
I said nothing.
'It'll be nice, you know. I'll be looking at the stars, too. All the stars will be wells with a rusty pulley. All the stars will pour out water for me to drink...'
I said nothing.
'And it'll be fun! You'll have five-hundred million little bells; I'll have five-hundred million springs of fresh water...'
And he, too, said nothing more.

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.

It's all a great mystery...Look up at the sky and you'll see how everything changes

One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets oneself be tamed...

Mais les yeux sont aveugles. Il faut chercher avec le cœur.

Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: ‘What does his voice sound like?’ ‘What games does he like best?’ ‘Does he collect butterflies?’ They ask: ‘How old is he?’ ‘How many brothers does he have?’ ‘How much does he weigh?’ ‘How much money does he have?’ Only then do they think they know him. If you tell grown-ups, ‘I saw a beautiful red brick house, with geraniums at the windows and doves at the roof…,’ they won’t be able to imagine such a house. You have to tell them, ‘I saw a house worth a thousand francs.’ Then they exclaim, ‘What a pretty house!

He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man

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... And yet what they're looking for could be found in a single rose.

You - you alone will have the stars as no one else has them...

if someone loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows, in all the millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars.

Grown ups are certainly very strange.

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.

The arms of love encompass you with your present, your past, your future, the arms of love gather you together.

You’ll be bothered from time to time by storms, fog, snow. When you are, think to yourself, ‘What they could do, I can do.