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Grown-ups always need things explained to them.
Grown-ups seem to understand nothing for themselves. It is very boring for children always to have to explain things to them.
told this little fellow, rather impatiently I fear, that my studies had included geography, history, mathematics and grammar, but not drawing, that I really was not much good at drawing.
He made a great announcement about his discovery in a lecture at The International Congress of Astronomy. But no one believed him, because of the clothes he was wearing. Grown-ups are like that.
ups. Grown-ups are very fond of numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask you the kind of questions that should be asked, such as: ‘What kind of voice does he have?’ ‘What are his favourite games?’ ‘Does he collect butterflies?’ Instead they ask: ‘How old is he? How many brothers has he got? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father earn?’ They really do imagine this is the best way to discover what sort of person he is!
If you tell grown-ups: ‘I once saw a beautiful house built of pink bricks, with geraniums in the window box, and with doves on the roof,’ they wouldn’t be able to picture what this house was like at all. No, you have to tell them ‘I once saw a house that must have cost 100,000 francs.’ Then they would exclaim: ‘What a lovely house that must be!’
Children have to remember always to be very tolerant towards grown-ups.
I tell you about him because I don’t want to forget him. It is very sad to forget a friend. Not everyone has had a friend. And if I forget him, I could become like those grown-ups who are only interested in numbers.
The trouble was that I never could see sheep through boxes as he could. Perhaps I’m a little like a grown-up. Maybe I have grown old already.
He never once looked up at a star. He never loved anyone. All he ever did in his entire life was add up numbers.
‘If someone loves a flower, unique in all the millions and millions of stars, and it makes him happy to look up there and remember his flower, isn’t that enough in itself? He’ll be thinking: “My flower is up there somewhere.” But if a sheep comes along and she eats that flower, for him it would be as if all the starlight was put out! And you say, that’s not important!’
‘the flower you love so much is no longer in danger. I will draw a muzzle for your sheep. I will draw railings to protect your flower … I will
decided that before this I had understood nothing, about this little flower,’ the little prince continued, ‘that I should judge her, not by her words but by what she did. She filled me with her fragrance, she had brought joy to my life. I should never leave her.
Flowers are so contrary. But I was too young to know how to love her
You have to expect from everyone only what it is possible for them to do. All authority is based on reason. If
you order your people to go and throw themselves in the sea, there would be a revolution. I have the right to expect them to obey me only if my orders are reasonable.’
‘Well in that case, you could judge yourself,’ said the king. ‘That’s very hard indeed, you know, much more difficult than to judge others. It is a wise man who can judge himself.’
But the man was not listening. Such puffed-up people only ever listen to praise and flattery.
But I don’t just own my volcanoes, and my flower, I am useful to them. You may own your stars, but you do nothing for them.’
And because it is beautiful, that makes it truly useful.’
the lamplighter is the one who does not seem to me to be ridiculous. Maybe that’s because he’s the only one who thinks about anything else but himself.’
‘something that is bound sooner or later to disappear.’
‘My dear little flower is ephemeral,’ the little prince said to himself. ‘And she has only four thorns to defend herself against the world. And I have left her behind at home all alone!’
‘What a weird sort of a planet,’ thought the little prince. ‘Everything is harsh and forbidding and pointed. And as for the people, they clearly have little intelligence and imagination. They just repeat everything you say to them. At home I had my flower, and she was always the one who spoke to me first.’
The important things in life you cannot see with your eyes, only with your heart.’
‘It is the time you gave to your rose that makes her so important to you.’
