Antoine de saint-exupery quotes

It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.

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.

Love does not cause suffering: what causes it is the sense of ownership, which is love's opposite.

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

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.

And at night I love to listen to the stars. It is like five hundred million little bells.

The Beauty of the Mountain is hidden for all those who try to discover it from the top, supposing that, one way or an other, one can reach this place directly. The Beauty of the Mountain reveals only to those who climbed it.

For true love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have. And if you go to draw at the true fountainhead, the more water you draw, the more abundant is its flow.

Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away.

Real love begins where nothing is expected in return.

You risk tears if you let yourself be tamed.

You'll be bothered from time to time by storms, fog, snow. When you are, think of those who went through it before you, and say to yourself, 'What they could do, I can do.'

A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us.

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.

The one thing that matters is the effort.

Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.

Once you are my friend, I am responsible for you.

Behind all seen things lies something vaster; everything is but a path, a portal or a window opening on something other than iteself.

No single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born. It would be a bit too easy if we could go about borrowing ready-made souls.

One's suffering disappears when one lets oneself go, when one yields - even to sadness.

It's quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes. [Fr., Il est tres simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.]

A man's age is something impressive, it sums up his life: maturity reached slowly and against many obstacles, illnesses cured, griefs and despairs overcome, and unconscious risks taken; maturity formed through so many desires, hopes, regrets, forgotten things, loves. A man's age represents a fine cargo of experience and memories.

It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others.

He who never says "no" is no true man.

I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn’t much improved my opinion of them.

Tell me who admires and loves you, and I will tell you who you are.

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.

Experience will guide us to the rules. You cannot make rules precede practical experience.

Language is the source of misunderstandings.

How could drops of water know themselves to be a river? Yet the river flows on.

There is no hope of joy except in human relations.

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

Demagoguery enters at the moment when, for want of a common denominator, the principle of equality degenerates into the principle of identity.

Although human life is priceless, we always act as if something had an even greater price than life... but what is that something?

It is always in the midst, in the epicenter, of your troubles that you find serenity.

True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.

When someone blushes, doesn't that mean 'yes'?

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.

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

For there is but one problem - the problem of human relations. We forget that there is no hope or joy except in human relations.

If you are to be, you must begin by assuming responsibility. You alone are responsible for every moment of your life, for every one of your acts.

I still fall for your everyday.

When you give yourself, you receive more than you give.

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!

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.

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.

True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.

Let your dream devour your life, not your life devour your dream.

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.

I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin.

In giving you are throwing a bridge across the chasm of your solitude.

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.

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.

When one is building a ship, one does not begin with gathering timber and cutting planks, but rather by arousing in people the yearning for the great wide sea.

True love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have.

To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible.

One cannot build life from refrigerators, politics, credit statements and crossword puzzles. That is impossible. Nor can one exist for any length of time without poetry, without color, without love.

If you want to build a ship, don't summon people to buy wood, prepare tools, distribute jobs, and organize the work; teach people the yearning for the wide, boundless ocean.

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

The essential things in life are seen, not with the eyes but with the heart.

Of course, I love you,' the flower said to him. 'If you were not aware of it, it was my fault.

To live is to be slowly born.

There is nothing that can equal the treasure of so many shared memories.

Truth is not that which is demonstrable but that which is ineluctable.

We are forever responsible for that which we have tamed.

To love is not to look at one another: it is to look, together, in the same direction.

The house, the stars, the desert -- what gives them their beauty is something that is invisible!

We live not by things, but by the meaning of things. It is needful to transmit the passwords from generation to generation.

A goal without a pan is just a wish.

Attitude is a paintbrush. It colors everything!

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.

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 tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow

But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.

I am who I am and I have the need to be.

Every person that comes into our life comes for a reason; some come to learn and others come to teach.

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.

As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.

Man is, above all, he who creates.

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

I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.

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

"What place would you advise me to visit now?" he asked. "The planet Earth," replied the geographer. "It has a good reputation."

Night, when words fade and things come alive.

You know you've achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away.

Life has meaning only if one barters it day by day for something other than itself.

The tender friendships one gives up, on parting, leave their bite on the heart, but also a curious feeling of a treasure somewhere buried.

Friendship is born from an identity of spiritual goals - from common navigation toward a star.

If you want to build a ship, teach the men to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

It is not for us to forecast the future, but to shape it.

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.

Aimer, ce n'est point nous regarder l'un l'autre, mais regarder ensemble dans la meme direction. English Translation: To love is not to look at each other, But to look together in the same direction.

Sometimes we behave as though there was something more important than life. But what?

I am very fond of sunsets. Come, let us go look at a sunset.

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

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.

The tree is a slow, enduring force straining to win the sky.

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.

Make your life a dream, and a dream a reality.

What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.

Even our misfortunes are a part of our belongings.

Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life. It is not something discovered: it is something molded.

All men have the stars," he answered, "but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travellers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all the stars are silent. You--you alone--will have the stars as no one else has them--

I was wrong to grow older. Pity. I was so happy as a child.

A man's age represents a fine cargo of experiences and memories.

It is such a secret place, the land of tears.

The time for action is now. It's never too late to do something.

The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves, but in our attitude towards them.

A chief is a man who assumes responsibility. He says 'I was beaten,' he does not say 'My men were beaten.'

In those days, I didn't understand anything. I should have judged her according to her actions, not her words. She perfumed my planet and lit up my life. I should never have run away! I ought to have realized the tenderness underlying her silly pretensions. Flowers are so contadictory! But I was too young to know how to love her.

In every crowd are certain persons who seem just like the rest, yet they bear amazing messages.

It is in your act that you exist, not in your body. Your act is yourself, and there is no other you.

Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.

One only really sees with the heart.

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

Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas.

Truths may clash without contradicting each other.

You cannot plant an acorn in the morning, and expect that afternoon to sit in the shade of an oak.

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.

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it.

Perfection is attained, not when no more can be added, but when no more can be removed.

You give birth to that on which you fix your mind

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.

We don’t ask to be eternal beings. We only ask that things do not lose all their meaning.

I have always learned to distinguish the important from the urgent.