Quotes from Antoine de Saint-Exupery

And if not for the caterpillars and butterflies, who will I talk to? You'll be far away. And as for larger creatures, I'm not afraid. I have my thorns...to protect me.

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

Si quelqu'un veut un mouton, c'est la preuve qu'il en existe un. (If somebody wants a sheep, that is a proof that one exists.)

Of course I love you. It is my fault that you have not known it all the while" (the flower to little prince)

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

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

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

A man's age represents a fine cargo of experiences and memories.

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

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.

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.

A man has many parts, he is virtually everything, and you are free to select in him that part which pleases you.

One is a member of a country, a profession, a civilization, a religion. One is not just a man.

One can be a brother only in something. Where there is no tie that binds men, men are not united but merely lined up.

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

A chief is a man who assumes responsibility. He says 'I was beaten,' he does not say 'My men were beaten.'

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

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

Man's progress is but a gradual discovery that his questions have no meaning.

Horror causes men to clench their fists, and in horror men join together.

A child is not frightened at the thought of being patiently transmuted into an old man.

What sets men at variance is but the treachery of language, for always they desire the same things.

It was the contemplation of God that created men who were equal, for it was in God that they were equal.

If you want to build a ship, don't summon people to buy wood, prepare tools, distribute jobs, and organize the work; teach people the yearning for the wide, boundless ocean.