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: Love, Life, War, Romance
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
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.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Perfection, Rationality
To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Confidence, Self-reliance
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
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
Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Life
True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Happiness
If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Dreams, Vision
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
Perhaps love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself. Not to whom I want you to be, but to who you are.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Love
The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves, but in our attitude towards them.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Meaning
One’s suffering disappears when one lets oneself go, when one yields – even to sadness.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Emotions
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
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
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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: Self-reliance, Mistakes, Confidence, Responsibility, Failure, Failures, Leadership
Love is not just looking at each other, it’s looking in the same direction.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Love, Feelings
Language is the source of misunderstandings.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Language
Living is being born slowly. It would be a little too easy if we could borrow ready-made souls.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Self-Discovery
It is always in the midst, in the epicenter, of your troubles that you find serenity.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Adversity
Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Topics: Realistic Expectations
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Jean Giraudoux French Novelist, Playwright
Alexandre Dumas pere French Novelist, Playwright
Andre Maurois French Novelist, Biographer
Marguerite Duras French Novelist, Playwright
Nathalie Sarraute French Novelist
Jules Verne French Novelist
Andre Breton French Poet, Critic
Samuel Beckett Irish Novelist, Playwright
Emile Zola French Novelist
Milan Kundera Czech Novelist