The Quotable Saint-Exupery


If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the
work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

As for the future, your task is not to forsee it, but to enable it.
The Wisdom of the Sands

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man
contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
Flight to Arras

La perfection est atteinte non quand il ne reste rien à ajouter, mais
quand il ne reste rien à enlever.
(You know you've achieved perfection
in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have
nothing more to take away.)

Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward
together in the same direction.

Voici mon secret. Il est très simple : on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur.
L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.
(It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential
is invisible to the eye.)
The Little Prince

What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.

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.
Wind, Sand, and Stars

Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.

The machine does not isolate us from the great problems of nature but
plunges us more deeply into them

There is no hope of joy except in human relations.

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man
contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.



Bibliography

Courrier Sud (Southern Mail), 1929
Vol de Nuit (Night Flight), 1931
Terre des Hommes (Wind, Sand, and Stars), 1939
Pilote de Guerre (Flight to Arras), 1942
Lettre à un Otage (Letter to a Hostage), 1943
Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince), 1943
Citadelle (The Wisdom of the Sands), posthumous

 

Saint-Exupery Online


home