The Little Prince

with perhaps a hint of sadness
then they would be convinced, and leave you in peace from their questions.
I have had to grow old.
I do not much like to take the tone of a moralist.
You know-one loves the sunset, when one is so sad…
The little prince never let go of a question, once he had asked it.
You talk just like the grown-ups!
I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He has never smelled a flower. He has never looked at a star. He has never loved anyone. He has never done anything in his life but add up figures. And all day he says over and over, just like you:’I am busy with matters of consequence!’ And that makes him swell up with pride.
If some one loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows in all the 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!
On one star, one planet, my planet, the Earth, there was a little prince to be comforted.
Well, I must endure the presence of two or three caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.
“Don’t linger like this. You have decided to go away. Now go!” For she did not want him to see her crying. She was such a proud flower…
He plucked up his courage to ask the king a favor.
Then, with a sigh, he took his leave.
My life is very monotonous, I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat…
One only understands the things that one tames. Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me…
It would have been better to come back at the same hour. If, for example, you come at four o’clock in the afternoon, then at three o’clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o’clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you… One must observe the proper rites…
You are beautiful, but you are empty. One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you - the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen;because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars; because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.
They are pursuing nothing at all. They are asleep in there, or if they are not asleep they are yawning. Only the children are flattening their noses against the windowpanes.
The stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen.
What makes the desert beautiful, is that somewhere it hides a well…
I felt the need of protecting him, as if he himself were a flame that might be extinguished by a little puff of wind…
It was as sweet as some special festival treat. This water was indeed a different thing from ordinary nourishment. Its sweetness was born of the walk under the stars, the song of the pulley, the effort of my arms. It was good for the heart, like a present.
If your love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are abloom with flowers…

Feeling

The time we spend on certain day makes it special.
The grown-ups like figures, neglecting the essential merit.