quotes from exupéry's the little prince

chapter 1:
Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.


chapter 2:
When a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey.


chapter 3:
"Straight ahead of him, nobody can go very far..."


chapter 4:
Children should always show great forbearance toward grown-up people.

To forget a friend is sad.


chapter 5:
...seeds are invisible. They sleep deep in the heart of the earth's darkness, until some one among them is seized with the desire to awaken. Then this little seed will stretch itself and begin--timidly at first--to push a charming little sprig inoffensively upward toward the sun.


chapter 6:
"You know--one loves the sunset, when one is so sad..."


chapter 7:
"If someone loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows in all the millions and millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars. He can say to himself, 'Somewhere, my flower is there...' But if the sheep eats the flower, in one moment all his stars will be darkened... And you think that is not important!"


chapter 8:
"The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little strategems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her..."


chapter 9:
"Of course I love you. It is my fault that you have not known it all the while. That is of no importance. But you--you have been just as foolish as I. Try to be happy..."


chapter 10:
"One must require from each one the duty which each one can perform."

"Accepted authority rests first of all on reason. If you ordered your people to go and throw themselves into the sea, they would rise up in revolution. I have the right to require obedience because my orders are reasonable."

"Then you shall judge yourself. That is the most difficult thing of all. It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom."


chapter 11:
Conceited people never hear anything but praise.


chapter 12:
"The grown-ups are certainly very, very odd."


chapter 13:
"When you find a diamond that belongs to nobody, it is yours. When you discover an island that belongs to nobody, it is yours. When you get an idea before any one else, you take out a patent on it: it is yours. So with me: I own the stars, because nobody else before me ever thought of owning them."


chapter 14:
"That is a beautiful occupation. And since it is beautiful, it is truly useful."


chapter 15:
"What does that mean--'ephemeral'?"

"It means, 'which is in danger of speedy disappearance.'"


chapter 16:
The Earth is not just an ordinary planet!


chapter 17:
"I wonder whether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one day each one of us may find his own again..."


chapter 18:
"Men? ...I saw them, several years ago. But one never knows where to find them. The wind blows them away. They have no roots, and that makes their life very difficult."


chapter 19:
"What a queer planet! It is altogether dry, and altogether pointed, and altogether harsh and forbidding. And the people have no imagination. They repeat whatever one says to them..."


chapter 20:
"I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all I had was a common rose. A common rose, and three volcanoes that come up to my knees--and one of them perhaps extinct forever...That doesn't make me a very great prince..."


chapter 21:
"...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...if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? 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..."

"One only understands the things that one tames. 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..."

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

"Men have forgotten this truth. But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."


chapter 22:
"No one is ever satisfied where he is."

"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..."


chapter 23:
"If I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water."


chapter 24:
"The stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen."

My home was hiding a secret in the depths of its heart.

"The house, the stars, the desert--what gives them their beauty is something that is invisible!"


chapter 25:
"But the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart..."

One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed...


chapter 26:
"All men have the stars but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all these stars are silent. You--you alone--will have the stars as no one else has them--"

"In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night... You--only you--will have stars that can laugh!"

"And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure... And your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them, 'Yes, the stars always make me laugh!'"


chapter 27:
Ask yourselves: is it yes or no? ...no grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance!