What sets us against one another is not our aims-they all come to the same thing-but our methods, which are the fruit of our varied reasoning.
Once we are bound together to our brothers by a common good that is outside us, then we can breathe. Experience teaches us that love is not to gaze at one another but to gaze in the same direction. There is no comradeship except through unity on the same rope, climbing towards the same peak.
Cries of despair, misery, sobbing grief are a kind of wealth.
And the little prince broke into a lovely peal of laughter, which irritated me very much. I like my misfortunes to be taken seriously.
Only the children know what they are looking for. They waste their time over a rag doll and it becomes very important to them; and if anybody takes it away from them, they cry...
Behind all seen things lies something vaster; everything is but a path, a portal or a window opening on something other than iteself.
For, to conceited men, all other men are admirers.
And that heart which was a wild garden was given to him who only loved trim lawns. And the imbecile carried the princess into slavery.
You’re not a man, you’re a mushroom!
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...
We do not pray for immortality, but only not to see our acts and all things stripped suddenly of all their meaning; for then it is the utter emptiness of everything reveals itself.
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.
Once men are caught up in an event, they cease to be afraid. Only the unknown frightens men.
One can be a brother only in something. Where there is no tie that binds men, men are not united but merely lined up.
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.
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.
War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus.
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.
You will have five hundred million little bells, and I shall have five hundred million springs of fresh water...