Antoine de Saint-Exupery Quotes

So the crew fly on with no thought that they are in motion. Like night over the sea, they are very far from the earth, from towns, from trees. The clock ticks on. The dials, the radio lamps, the various hands and needles go though their invisible alchemy. . . . and when the hour is at hand the pilot may glue his forehead to the window with perfect assurance. Out of oblivion the gold has been smelted: there it gleams in the lights of the airport.

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

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.

I am a fox", the fox said.

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

Good taste" is a virtue of the keepers of museums. If you scorn bad taste, you will have neither painting nor dancing, neither palaces nor gardens.

Si quelqu'un veut un mouton, c'est la preuve qu'il en existe un. (If somebody wants a sheep, that is a proof that one exists.)

He who bears in his heart a cathedral to be built is already victorious. He who seeks to become sexton of a finished cathedral is already defeated.

If you tame me, it would be as if the sun came to shine on my life.

I don't understand these people anymore, that travel the commuter-trains to their dormitory towns. These people that call themselves human, but, by a pressure they do not feel, are forced to do their work like ants. With what do they fill their time when they are free of work on their silly little Sundays? I am very fortunate in my profession. I feel like a farmer, with the airstrips as my fields. Those that have once tasted this kind of fare will not forget it ever. Not so, my friends?

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

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

You know... when you are sad you love the sunsets.

On ne sait jamais! One never knows!

I did not know how to reach him, how to catch up with him... The land of tears is so mysterious.

One only really sees with the heart.

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.

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

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

Ephemeral" It means 'which is in danger of speedy disappearance.

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

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.

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

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

We are prudent people. We are afraid to let go of our petty reality in order to grasp at a great shadow.

When I find a woman attractive, I have nothing at all to say. I simply watch her smile. Intellectuals take apart her face in order to explain it bit by bit, but they no longer see the smile.

The one thing that matters is the effort.

I don't believe you! Flowers are weak creatures. They are naive. They reassure themselves as best they can. They believe that their thorns are terrible weapons.

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

All of us have had the experience of a sudden joy that came when nothing in the world had forewarned us of its coming - a joy so thrilling that if it was born of misery we remembered even the misery with tenderness.

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.

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.

If a composer suffers from loss of sleep and his sleeplessness induces him to turn out masterpieces, what a profitable loss it is!

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

The theoretician believes in logic and believes that he despises dreams, intuition, and poetry. He does not recognize that these three fairies have only disguised themselves in order to dazzle him.... He does not know that he owes his greatest discoveries to them.

A goal without a pan is just a wish.

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

The flower you single out is a rejection of all other flowers; nevertheless, only on these terms is it beautiful.

One is a member of a country, a profession, a civilization, a religion. One is not just a man.

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--

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

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.

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.

Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures-in this century as in others our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together.

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

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.

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

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