A chief is a man who assumes responsibility. He says ‘I was beaten,’ he does not say ‘My men were beaten.’
Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.
I still fall for your everyday.
A sky as pure as water bathed the stars and brought them out.
The magic of the craft has opened for me a world in which I shall confront, within two hours, the black dragons and the crowned crests of a coma of blue lightnings, and when night has fallen I, delivered, shall read my course in the starts.
The essential things in life are seen, not with the eyes but with the heart.
When the body sinks into death, the essence of man is revealed. Man is a knot, a web, a mesh into which relationships are tied. Only those relationships matter. The body is an old crock that nobody will miss. I have never known a man to think of himself when dying. Never.
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.
What I see here is nothing but a shell. What is most important is invisible...
The stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen... The desert is beautiful,” the little prince added. And that was true. 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... “What makes the desert beautiful,” said the little prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well... ” I was astonished by a sudden understanding of that mysterious radiation of the sands.
I like my misfortunes to be taken seriously.
I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat...
This water was indeed a different thing from ordinary nourishment. Its sweetness was born of the walk under the stars, the song of the pulley, the effort of my arms. It was good for the heart, like a present.
Love is not about staring at each other, but staring off in the same direction.
How do we tell the difference between an image and an act of will?
When you’ve finished your own toilet in the morning, then it is time to attend to the toilet of your planet, just so, with the greatest care.
Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c’est fatigant, pour les enfants, de toujours leur donner des explications.
But the flower was not satisfied to complete the preparations for her beauty in the shelter of her green chamber. She chose her colours with the greatest care. She dressed herself slowly. She adjusted her petals one by one. She did not wish to go out into the world all rumpled, like the field poppies. It was only in the full radiance of her beauty that she wished to appear.
Grown-ups like numbers.