Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

23 quotes

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, a French writer and aviator, is widely remembered for insights that continue to resonate with readers everywhere. With equal ease, Antoine de Saint-Exupery moved between Men and Love, finding connections others missed. 26 of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's sharpest quotes live here, spanning themes of Men, Love, Work, War, and Truth. Start here and see if you agree: "I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind."

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Imagination

All Quotes by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Happiness

“Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Love

“The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves, but in our attitude towards them.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Attitude

“We say nothing essential about the cathedral when we speak of its stones. We say nothing essential about Man when we seek to define him by the qualities of men.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Men

“Charity never humiliated him who profited from it, nor ever bound him by the chains of gratitude, since it was not to him but to God that the gift was made.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

God

“Tell me who admires and loves you, and I will tell you who you are.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Love

“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.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Respect

“A chief is a man who assumes responsibility. He says 'I was beaten,' he does not say 'My men were beaten.'”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Men

“War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

War

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

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Men

“'Men have forgotten this truth,' said the fox. 'But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.'”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Men

“For true love is inexhaustible the more you give, the more you have. And if you go to draw at the true fountainhead, the more water you draw, the more abundant is its flow.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Love

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Imagination

“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Work

“Only the unknown frightens men. But once a man has faced the unknown, that terror becomes the known.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Men

“The time for action is now. It's never too late to do something.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Time

“One can be a brother only in something. Where there is no tie that binds men, men are not united but merely lined up.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Men

“The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Great

“A civilization is a heritage of beliefs, customs, and knowledge slowly accumulated in the course of centuries, elements difficult at times to justify by logic, but justifying themselves as paths when they lead somewhere, since they open up for man his inner distance.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Knowledge

“A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Men