More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
I like my misfortunes to be taken seriously.
‘It wouldn’t matter. Everything is so small where I live.’ And, perhaps a little wistfully, he added: ‘Straight ahead of oneself, one cannot go very far…’
Grown-ups love figures. When you talk to them about a new friend, they never ask questions about essential matters.
If I am attempting to describe him, it is in order not to forget him.
‘Before they grow to such a size, baobabs start out by being small.’
‘When you have finished your toilet in the morning, it is time to attend to the planet’s toilet with great care.
‘One day, I watched the sun setting forty-four times,’ you told me. And a little later, you added: ‘You know… when one is so terribly sad, one loves sunsets…’
‘Thorns are quite useless. Flowers have them out of sheer spite.’ ‘Oh!’
‘If someone loves a flower of which there is only one on the millions and millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy when he looks at them for he can say to himself: “My flower is somewhere out there…” But if the sheep eats the flower, it is for him as if, all of a sudden, all the stars went dark! And you think that is not important!’
‘At the time, I was unable to understand anything! I should have based my judgement upon deeds and not words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I should never have run away from her! I should have guessed at the affection behind her poor little tricks. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her.’
‘I shall have to put up with a few caterpillars if I want to see butterflies.
One must demand of each and every one what he or she is capable of. Authority is first and foremost based on reason.
‘Then you shall judge yourself,’ answered the king. ‘That is the most difficult thing of all. It is far more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then indeed you are very wise.’
‘I myself own a flower which I water every day,’ he told the businessman. ‘I own three volcanoes which I clean out every week. I always include the one which is extinct. One never knows. It is good for my volcanoes and good for the flower I own. But you are of no use to the stars…’
‘It is just as lonely among men,’ said the snake.
she would cough and cough and pretend she was dying so as to avoid being thought ridiculous. And I would have to pretend to nurse her, for otherwise she would really let herself die… in order to humiliate me.’
‘To me, you are still just a little boy like a hundred other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you have no need of me, either. To you, I am just a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, we shall need one another. To me, you will be unique. And I shall be unique to you.’
But if you come at just any time, I shall never know when I should prepare my heart to greet you…One
‘You are beautiful but you are empty,’ he continued. ‘One cannot die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passer-by would believe that my very own rose looked just like you, but she is far more important than all of you because she is the one I have watered. And it is she that I have placed under a glass dome. And it is she that I have sheltered behind a screen. And it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except for the two or three saved to become butterflies). And it is she I have listened to complaining or boasting or sometimes remaining silent. Because she is my rose.’
It is only with one’s heart that one can see clearly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.’
‘It is the time you lavished on your rose which makes your rose so important.’
For what you have tamed, you become responsible forever. You are responsible for your rose…’
‘You know… my flower… I am responsible for her. And she is so weak, so trusting. She has four tiny thorns to protect herself against the world…’
Look at the sky. Ask yourselves: Has the sheep eaten the flower, yes or no? And you will see how everything changes… And no grown-ups will ever understand why it is so important!
