Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Quotes - 52 quotes

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944) was a renowned French aviator and writer. He is best known for his novella "The Little Prince" ("Le Petit Prince"), which has become a classic of world literature. He was born on June 29, 1900, in Lyon, France to an aristocratic family. He developed a passion fo... show more

 To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But 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...

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

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

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

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

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 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.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 Perhaps I am a little like the grown-ups. I have had to grow old.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 But seeds are invisible. They sleep deep in the heart of the earth's darkness, until some one among them is seized with the desire to awaken. Then this little seed will stretch itself and begin-timidly at first to push a charming little sprig inoffensively upward toward the sun.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 The thorns - what use are they?

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 But one day, from a seed blown from no one knew where, a new flower had come up;

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 So the little prince, in spite of all the good will that was inseparable from his love, had soon come to doubt her. He had taken seriously words which were without importance, and it made him very unhappy.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 But I did not know how to take pleasure in all her grace. ... The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little strategems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her...

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 But on this last morning all these familiar tasks seemed very precious to him.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 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.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 It is idle, having planted an acorn in the morning, to expect that afternoon to sit in the shade of the oak.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 He did not know how the world is simplified for kings. To them, all men are subjects.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 Then you shall judge yourself, that is the most difficult thing of all. It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 For, to conceited men, all other men are admirers.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 But the conceited man did not hear him. Conceited people never hear anything but praise.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 On matters of consequence, the little prince had ideas which were very different from those of the grown-ups.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 That is the tragedy! From year to year the planet has turned more rapidly and the orders have not been changed!

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 That man is the only one of them all whom I could have made my friend. But his planet is indeed too small. There is no room on it for two people.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 The geographer is much too important to go loafing about. He does not leave his desk.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 But one requires the explorer to furnish proofs.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 The recitals of explorers are put down first in pencil. One waits until the explorer has furnished proofs, before putting them down in ink.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 ...the little prince who never in his life had let go of a question, once he had asked it.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 We write of eternal things.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 When one wishes to play the wit, he sometimes wanders a little from the truth.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 Little Prince: But why do you always speak in riddles?" "I solve them all," said the snake. And they were both silent.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 "What a queer planet!" he thought. "It is altogether dry, and altogether pointed, and altogether harsh and forbidding. And the people have no imagination. They repeat whatever one says to them.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 I wonder, whether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one day each one of us may find his own again.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 And all roads lead to the abodes of men.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 The movements of this army would be regulated like those of the ballet in the opera. First would come the turn of the lamplighters of New Zealand and Australia. Having set their lamps alight, these would go off to sleep. Next, the lamplighters of China and Siberia would enter for their steps in the dance, and then they too would be waved back into the wings. After that would come the turn of the lamplighters of Russia and the Indies; then those of Africa and Europe; then those of South America; then those of South America; then those of North America. And never would they make a mistake in the order of their entry upon the stage. It would be magnificent.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 "Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy." "I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed." "What does that mean-'tame'?" "It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties." "To establish ties'?" "Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But 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..."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

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

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 The stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 What makes the desert beautiful," said the little prince, "is that somewhere it hides a well...

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

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

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 "Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 "One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me..."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 The little prince went away, to look again at the roses. "You are not at all like my rose,” he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 Only the children are flattening their noses against the windowpanes. Only the children know what they are looking for.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 "The men where you live," said the little prince, "raise five thousand roses in the same garden-and they do not find in it what they are looking for." ... "And yet what they are looking for could be found in one single rose, or in a little water."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

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

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 "All men have the stars," he answered, "but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, 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 these stars are silent. You-you alone-will have the stars as no one else has them-"

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 Then he went on with his reflections: "I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all I had was a common rose."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 But a thought came to reassure him: "It is true that they have no more poison for a second bite."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

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

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 Il semble que la perfection soit atteinte non quand il n'y a plus rien à ajouter, mais quand il n'y a plus rien à retrancher.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 Your task is not to foresee the future, but to enable it.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Share

 Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Missing Reference

Share

 Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Missing Reference

Share