Category: The Little Prince

I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn’t much improved my opinion of them.

When a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey.

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 many brothers has 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 proof that the little prince existed is that he laughed, and tha the was looking for a sheep. If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists.

Children, I say plainly, “watch out for the baobabs!”

You know – one loves the sunset, when one is so sad…
“Were you so sad, then?” I asked, “on the day of the forty-four sunsets?”
But the little prince made no reply.

If some one loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows in all the millions and millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars. He can say to himself: ‘Somewhere, my flower is there…’ But if the sheep eats the flower, in one moment all his stars will be darkened…And you think that is not important!

I did not know what to say to him. I felt awkward and blundering. I did not know how I could reach him, where I could overtake him and go on hand in hand with him once more.
It is such a secret place, the land of tears.

Now there were some terrible seeds on the planet that was the home of the little prince; and these were the seeds of the baobab. The soil of that planet was infested with them. A baobab is something you will never, never be able to get rid of if you attend to it too late. It spreads over the entire planet. It bores clear through it with its roots. And if the planet is too small, and the baobabs are too many, they split it in pieces…