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
Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Romance, Love, War, Togetherness, Life
It is such a secret place, the land of tears.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Crying
A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Civilization
Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Logic, Reason, Instincts
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
Once men are caught up in an event they cease to be afraid. Only the unknown frightens men.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Events
The one thing that matters is the effort.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Effort
The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves, but in our attitude towards them.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Meaning
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
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
What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Water
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
Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Life
There is a cheap literature that speaks to us of the need of escape. It is true that when we travel we are in search of distance. But distance is not to be found. It melts away. And escape has never led anywhere. The moment a man finds that he must play the races, go the Arctic, or make war in order to feel himself alive, that man has begin to spin the strands that bind him to other men and to the world. But what wretched strands! A civilization that is really strong fills man to the brim, though he never stir. What are we worth when motionless, is the question.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The tender friendships one gives up, on parting, leave their bite on the heart, but also a curious feeling of a treasure somewhere buried.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Friendship
The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Let your dream devour your life, not your life devour your dream.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Dreams
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Faith, Romance, Vision, Heart
To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Confidence, Self-reliance
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
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
What was my body to me? A kind of flunkey in my service. Let but my anger wax hot, my love grow exalted, my hatred collect in me, and that boasted solidarity between me and my body was gone.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Mankind, Man, Body
Love does not cause suffering: what causes it is the sense of ownership, which is love’s opposite
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Love
Commonly, people believe that defeat is characterized by a general bustle and a feverish rush. Bustle and rush are the signs of victory, not of defeat. Victory is a thing of action. It is a house in the act of being built. Every participant in victory sweats and puffs, carrying the stones for the building of the house. But defeat is a thing of weariness, of incoherence, of boredom. And above all of futility.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Failures, Defeat, Mistakes
How could drops of water know themselves to be a river? Yet the river flows on.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Discovery
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Perfectionism
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: Humanity, Humankind
Reminding one another of the dream that each of us aspires to may be enough for us to set each other free.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Humankind, One Step at a Time, Action
One’s suffering disappears when one lets oneself go, when one yields – even to sadness.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Emotions
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