I received my first copy of this life-changing book, Le Petit Prince, aka The Little Prince, written by the writer/aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry when I was a child. Of course, I read it with a bit of help, clinching my love of books early. But, little did I know, it would still rank as an all-time favorite and source of inspiration throughout my life.
There is much controversy about the most profound meaning of this work, the parable of war, love, and loss, and with the many opinions, there is no one definitive answer.
As with all wisdom shared, it is up to the reader, the listener, the receiver to garnish what they may from it.
Our lives are filled with magic and knowledge everywhere we look if we have eyes able to see and ears able to hear, often from unexpected sources.
Here are my favorite quotes from Le Petit Prince, complete with valuable life lessons for all.
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
“It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom.”
“What matters most are the simple pleasures so abundant that we can all enjoy them…Happiness doesn’t lie in the objects we gather around us. To find it, all we need to do is open our eyes.”
“All men have stars, but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others, they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. But all these stars are silent. So You-You alone will have stars as no one else has them.”
“Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.”
“It’s time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important…People have forgotten this truth, but you mustn’t forget it. Said the Fox. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose.”
“But the conceited man did not hear him. Conceited people never hear anything but praise.”
“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”
“All grown-ups were once children… but only a few of them remember it.”
“Grown-ups love figures… When you tell them you’ve made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, “What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies? “Instead, they demand, “How old is he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make? “Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.”
“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched; they are felt with the heart.”
Le Petit Prince became Saint-Exupéry’s most successful work, selling an estimated 140 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling and most translated books ever published. It has been translated into 300 languages and dialects.
I would have liked to have met this man; he died how he lived a free spirit. In 1944 Saint-Exupéry’s last assigned reconnaissance mission for the Free French Air Force was to collect intelligence on German troop movements. His plane crashed in the Mediterranean Sea, vanishing without a trace. Then in September 1998, south of Marseille, fisherman Jean-Claude Bianco found a silver identity bracelet bearing the names of Saint-Exupéry, his wife Consuelo, and his American publisher, Reynal & Hitchcock.
The Little Prince was written in Manhattan and Long Island; the book’s desert setting most likely derives from the 1935 experience of aviator Saint-Exupéry when he was lost for nearly a week in the Arabian desert.
