Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Antoine de

French Novelist, Essayist, Aviator

Author Quotes

When the body sinks into death, the essence of man is revealed. Man is a knot, a web, a mesh into which relationships are tied. Only those relationships matter.



I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin.


Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life. It is not something discovered; it is something molded.

Real love begins where nothing is expected in return.



I understand, finally, why the love of God created men responsible for one another and gave them hope as a virtue. Since it made of each of them the ambassador of the same God, in the hands of each rested the salvation of all.


When you give of yourself, you receive more than you give.

You are but a bridge, a passage, and your life’s reality lies in that which you transform. The tree transforms the earth into branches; the bee, the flower into honey; and your tillage, the black earth into a blaze of wheat.

Water, thou hast no taste, no color, no odor; canst not be defined, art relished while every mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself, thou fillest us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses.

We are prudent people. We are afraid to let go of our petty reality in order to grasp at a great shadow.

The acceptance of the risk of death and the acceptance of death are very different... The acceptance of the risk of death is the acceptance of life; and love of danger is love of life... The acceptance of risk is a gift you make yourself.

War is not an adventure. It is a disease.

Only he who death has chosen, who is busy spewing blood or pressing back his entrails - he alone knows the truth of it: that death has no terrors.

Our very psychology has been shaken to its foundation. To grasp the meaning of the world today we use a language created to express the world of yesterday. The life of the past seems to us nearer our true nature, but only for the reason that it is nearer our language.

Once men are caught up in an event they cease to be afraid. Only the unknown frightens men.

One crowded moment may be worth a lifetime.

Nothing comes of severity if there be no leanings towards a change of heart. And if there be natural leanings towards a change of heart, what need for severity?

No individual is isolated. He who is sad, saddens others.


Man's "progress' is but a gradual discovery that his questions have no meaning.

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Antoine de
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French Novelist, Essayist, Aviator