Hello Readers,
What have you been reading lately? I just devoured The Little Prince, and it has left me devastated. It has certainly left a profound impact on me. On the surface, it may seem like a children’s book, but the Little Prince’s messages of friendship, compassion and love continue to move hearts. Here are nine timeless life lessons from this enchanting story, as told through quotes.
1. Our lives are measured in love, not numbers
Grown-ups are very fond of numbers.
When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask you the kind of questions that should be asked, such as: “What kind of voice does he have?” “What are his favourite games?” “Does he collect butterflies?” Instead, they ask: “How old is he? How much money does his father earn?” They really do imagine this is the best way to discover what sort of person he is!’
“If you were to say to the grown−ups: “I saw a beautiful house made of rosy brick, with geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof,” they would not be able to get any idea of that house at all. You would have to say to them: “I saw a house that cost $20,000.” Then they would exclaim: “Oh, what a pretty house that is!”
2. Don’t judge others by their words but by what they do
“[My rose]She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her… I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her…”
3. Dare to have a mind of your own
“Who are you?” said the little prince.
“Who are you-Who are you-Who are you?” answered the echo. “Be my friends. I am all alone,” he said.
“I am all alone — all alone — all alone,” answered the echo.
“What a queer planet!” he thought. “It is altogether dry, and altogether pointed, and altogether harsh and forbidding. And the people have no imagination. They repeat whatever one says to them . . . On my planet I had a flower; she always was the first to speak . . .”
4. Relationships make life worth living
‘”What exactly does ‘tamed’ mean?”
“It is an act too often neglected,” said the fox. “It means to establish ties.”
“To establish ties?”
“To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world…”
5. Money can’t buy love or friendship
“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 anymore.”
6. It is time you give to something that makes it precious
“You are beautiful, but you are empty,” he went on. “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 ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.”
“No one has tamed you and you haven’t tamed anyone. You’re the way my fox was. He was just a fox like a hundred thousand others. But I’ve made him my friend, and now he’s the only fox in the world.”
7. The essential things in life you cannot see with your eyes
As the little prince dropped off to sleep, I took him in my arms and set out walking…I felt deeply moved…it seemed to me that I was carrying a very fragile treasure. It seemed to me, even, that there was nothing more fragile on all the Earth. In the moonlight, I looked at his pale forehead, his closed eyes, his locks of hair that trembled in the wind, and I said to myself: “What I see here is nothing but a shell. What is most important is invisible to the eye.”
8. The greater the effort, the sweeter the reward
“I raised the bucket to his lips. He drank, his eyes closed. It was as sweet as some special festival treat. This water was indeed a different thing…Its sweetness was born under the stars, the song of the pulley, the effort of my arms. It was good for the heart, like a present.”
9. Always finally, always remember to look up at the stars
“All men have stars, but they are not the same things for different people. For travellers, the stars are guides. For others, they are no more than little lights in the sky. For scholars, they are problems… But all these stars are silent…In one of the stars, I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars will be laughing when you look at the sky at night…You, only you, will have stars that can laugh!”
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Have you read The Little Prince? I’d love to know 🙂