What do we mean by setting a man free? You cannot free a man who dwells in a desert and is an unfeeling brute.

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.

Nothing comes of severity if there be no leanings towards a change of heart. And if there be natural leanings towards a change of heart, what need for severity?

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.

To be a man is to feel that one's own stone contributes to building the edifice of the world.

I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower... I think that she has tamed me.

It is the missed opportunity that counts, and in a love that vainly yearns from behind prison bars you have perchance the love supreme.