Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exupery

Pilot, Poet, Man 1900 - 1944


[Quotes] -- [Bibliography] -- [Online]

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
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.

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

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