Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Writer

1900-06-29 – 1944-07-31

Antoine de Saint-Exupery was a French writer and aviator best known for The Little Prince. He flew reconnaissance missions during World War II and disappeared on a mission in 1944. His literary work combines aviation, philosophy, and humanism.

Quotes by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

One must command from each what each can preform.
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But if you tame me, then weshall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, Ishall be unique in all the world.
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It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.
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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.
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Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.
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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.
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It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme joys.
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A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
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The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves, but in our attitude towards them.
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Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
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Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
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The time for action is now. It's never too late to do something.
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Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures-in this century as in others our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together.
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I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin.
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No single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born. It would be a bit too easy if we could go about borrowing ready-made souls.
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For true love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have. And if you go to draw at the true fountainhead, the more water you draw, the more abundant is its flow.
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What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.
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True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.
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If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
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Man's progress is but a gradual discovery that his questions have no meaning.
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