44 quotes
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
Pilote de Guerre (1942)
Your task is not to foresee the future, but to enable it.
Citadelle or The Wisdom of the Sands (1948)
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.
Terre des Hommes (1939)
Human drama does not show itself on the surface of life. It is not played out in the visible world, but in the hearts of men.
Terre des Hommes (1939)
It seems to me that those who complain of man's progress confuse ends with means.
Terre des Hommes (1939)
But you want to remember that below the sea of clouds lies eternity.
Terre des Hommes (1939)
What makes the desert beautiful is that it hides, somewhere, a well.
The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.
Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Terre des hommes (1939)
It seems that perfection is attained, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.
It is another of the miraculous things about mankind that there is no pain nor passion that does not radiate to the ends of the earth. Let a man in a garret but burn with enough intensity and he will set fire to the world.
Terre des Hommes (1939)
Even our misfortunes are a part of our belongings
Vol de Nuit (1931)
Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and naught in you will ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the astronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning.
Terre des Hommes (1939)
Here is my secret. It is very simple. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye.
Le Petit Prince (1943)
"What makes the desert beautiful", said the little prince, "is that it hides, somewhere, a well".
Le Petit Prince (1943)
Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
Le Petit Prince (1943)
Have you looked at a modern airplane? Have you followed from year to year the evolution of its lines?
Terre des Hommes (1939)
A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them.
Citadelle or The Wisdom of the Sands (1948)
"It's a little lonely in the desert..."
"It is lonely when you're among people, too," said the snake.
You could not liberate a stone if there were no law of gravity—for where will the stone go, once it is quarried?
Flight to Arras (1942)