Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (French Novelist, Aviator)

Antoine Marie Roger de Saint-Exupéry (1900–44) was a French novelist, essayist, and aviator. He is best known for the fable Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince.)

Born in Lyon to an aristocratic family, Saint-Exupéry took great interest in the rapidly developing science of flight. He was conscripted at age 21 into the French air force, qualifying as military pilot a year later. He became a commercial pilot in 1926, flying first from France to Morocco and West Africa. His experiences inspired the novel that launched his literary career, Courrier Sud (1929; Southern Mail.) It portrays a pilot’s solitary struggle against the elements and his sense of dedication to his vocation.

During the following years, Saint-Exupéry pursued his flying career, despite several crashes. His Terre des hommes (1939; Wind, Sand and Stars) was a series of poetic essays on the pilot’s meditations on the spiritual aspects of the adventure of flight. It brought Saint-Exupéry to the height of literary fame.

Saint-Exupéry’s other works include the fable Le Petit Prince (1943; The Little Prince,) Citadelle (1948; The Wisdom of the Sands,) and volumes of correspondence and notebook jottings. Le Petit Prince features a little prince who visits earth from his tiny planet. It is considered a literary classic that examines loneliness, friendship, and philosophy. Saint-Exupéry even did the watercolors for the book. It’s been translated into over 250 languages and dialects, including Braille, and sells 2 million copies annually.

During World War II, even when he was too old to fly, Saint-Exupéry insisted on serving in the air force. He flew his last mission in 1944. It was assumed that his plane had crashed in the Alps, but more than 60 years later, the wreckage was recovered from the Mediterranean seabed near Provence.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Let your dream devour your life, not your life devour your dream.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Dreams

It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Value of a Day, Time Management

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.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Happiness

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.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Sacrifice

He who is different from me does not impoverish me – he enriches me. Our unity is constituted in something higher than ourselves – in Man… For no man seeks to hear his own echo, or to find his reflection in the glass.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The important thing is to strive towards a goal which is not immediately visible. That goal is not the concern of the mind, but of the spirit.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Goals

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.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Humankind, Humanity

It is such a secret place, the land of tears.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Crying

Love is not just looking at each other, it’s looking in the same direction.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Love, Feelings

The friend within the man is that part of him which belongs to you and opens to you a door which never, perhaps, is opened to another. Such a friend is true, and all he says is true; and he loves you even if he hates you in other mansions of his heart.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Friendship

Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery

One’s suffering disappears when one lets oneself go, when one yields – even to sadness.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Emotions

The arms of love encompass you with your present, your past, your future, the arms of love gather you together.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Love

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Romance, Heart, Vision, Faith

One can be a brother only in something. Where there is no tie that binds men, men are not united but merely lined up.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Brothers, Humanity

It is in your act that you exist, not in your body. Your act is yourself, and there is no other you.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Secrets of Success

He who would travel happily must travel light.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Travel, Love

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.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Love, Giving

Once men are caught up in an event they cease to be afraid. Only the unknown frightens men.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Events

Language is the source of misunderstandings.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Language

Sorrow is one of the vibrations that prove the fact of living.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Sadness

Let a man in a garret but bum with enough intensity and he will set fire to the world.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Enthusiasm, Knowledge

Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Night

A man’s age is something impressive, it sums up his life: maturity reached slowly and against many obstacles, illnesses cured, griefs and despairs overcome, and unconscious risks taken; maturity formed through so many desires, hopes, regrets, forgotten things, loves. A man’s age represents a fine cargo of experiences and memories.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Age

“It’s a question of discipline,” the little prince told me later on. “When you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet”.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Responsibility

Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Life

A chief is a man who assumes responsibility. He says, “I was beaten”. He does not say, “My men were beaten”. Thus speaks a real man.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Responsibility, Failures, Leadership, Mistakes, Self-reliance, Failure, Confidence

War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Realistic Expectations

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: One Step at a Time, Action, Humankind

But the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart…
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Heart

Wondering Whom to Read Next?

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *