Antoine de Saint-Exupery Quotes

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

“The time for action is now. It’s never too late to do something.”

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

“Love is not just looking at each other, it’s looking in the same direction.”

“The injustice of defeat lies in the fact that its most innocent victims are made to look like heartless accomplices. It is impossible to see behind defeat, the sacrifices, the austere performance of duty, the self-discipline and the vigilance that are there — those things the god of battle does not take account of.”

“Charity never humiliated him who profited from it, nor ever bound him by the chains of gratitude, since it was not to him but to God that the gift was made.”

“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.”

“Once men are caught up in an event, they cease to be afraid. Only the unknown frightens men.”

“To be a man is 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.”

“Loving is not just looking at each other, it’s looking in the same direction.”

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

“Commonly, people believe that defeat is characterized by a general bustle and a feverish rush. Bustle and rush are the signs of victory, not of defeat. Victory is a thing of action. It is a house in the act of being built. Every participant in victory sweats and puffs, carrying the stones for the building of the house. But defeat is a thing of weariness, of incoherence, of boredom. And above all of futility.”

“We say nothing essential about the cathedral when we speak of its stones. We say nothing essential about Man when we seek to define him by the qualities of men.”

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

“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.”

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

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

“It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme joys.”

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”

“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.”

“What was my body to me? A kind of flunkey in my service. Let but my anger wax hot, my love grow exalted, my hatred collect in me, and that boasted solidarity between me and my body was gone.”

“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.”

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

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

“‘Men have forgotten this truth,’ said the fox. ‘But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.'”

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

“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.”

“Whoever loves above all the approach of love will never know the joy of attaining it.”

“Man’s “progress” is but a gradual discovery that his questions have no meaning”

“Let a man in a garret but burn with enough intensity and he will set fire to the world”

“You are beautiful, but you are empty. One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you–the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered.”

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

“The notion of looking on at life has always been hateful to me. What am I if I am not a participant? In order to be, I must participate.”

“More wisdom is latent in things as they are than in all the words men use.”

“Sorrow is one of the vibrations that prove the fact of living”

“What do we mean by setting a man free? You cannot free a man who dwells in a desert and is an unfeeling brute. There is no liberty except the liberty of some one making his way towards something. Such a man can be set free if you will teach him the meaning of thirst, and how to trace a path to a well. Only then will he embark upon a course of action that will not be without significance. You could not liberate a stone if there were no law of gravity — for where will the stone go, once it is quarried?”

“Mad is the man who is forever gritting his teeth against that granite block, complete and changeless, of the past”

“Only he can understand what a farm is, what a country is, who shall have sacrificed part of himself to his farm or country, fought to save it, struggled to make it beautiful. Only then will the love of farm or country fill his heart.”

“The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.”

“Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction”

“Of what worth are convictions that bring not suffering?”

“A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them.”

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

“You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose.”

“Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.”

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

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

“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.”

“A civilization is a heritage of beliefs, customs, and knowledge slowly accumulated in the course of centuries, elements difficult at times to justify by logic, but justifying themselves as paths when they lead somewhere, since they open up for man his inner distance.”

“How could there be any question of acquiring or possessing, when the one thing needful for a man is to become — to be at last, and to die in the fullness of his being.”

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

“True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.”

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”