Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.
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...
A goal without a plan is just a wish.
You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.
True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.
No single event can awaken within us a stranger whose existence we had never suspected. To live is to be slowly born.
I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime.
You’re beautiful, but you’re empty. No one could die for you.
What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.
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.
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.
The time for action is now. It’s never too late to do something.
They never say to you, ‘What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?’ Instead, they demand ‘How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much money does his father make?’ Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.
I was too young to know how to love her.
But the conceited man did not hear him. Conceited people never hear anything but praise.
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.
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.
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
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...