《小王子》

Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is exhausting for children to have to provide explanations over and over again.

That’s the way they are. You must not hold it against them. Children should be very understanding of grown-ups.

… I have had, in the course of my life, lots of encounters and lots of serious people. I have spent lots of time with grown-ups. I have seen them at close range… which haven’t much improved my opinion of them.

I have serious reasons to believe that the planet the little prince came from is Asteroid B-612. This asteroid has been sighted only once by telescope, in 1909 by a Turkish astronomer, who had then made a formal demonstration of his discovery at an International Astronomonical Congress. But no one believed him on account of the way he was dressed. Grown-ups are like that.

Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: “What does his voice sound like?” “What games does he like best?” “Does he collect butterflies?”. They ask: “How old is he?” “How many brothers does he have?” “How much does he weigh?” “How much money does his father make?” Only then do they think they know him.

If you tell grown-ups, “I saw a beautiful red brick house, with geraniums at the windows and doves on the roof…,” they won’t be able to imagine such a house. You have to tell them, “I saw a house worth a hundred thousand francs.” Then they exclaim, “What a pretty house!”

“For millions of years flowers have been producing thorns. For millions of years sheep have been eating them all the same. And it’s not serious, trying to understand why flowers go to such trouble produce thorns that are good for nothing? It’s not important, the war between the sheep and the flowers?… Suppose I happen to know a unique flower, one that exists nowhere in the world except on my planet, one that a little sheep can wipe out in a single bite one morning, just like that, even without realizing what he’s doing – that isn’t important? If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that’s enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars. He tells himself, ‘My flower’s up there somewhere…’ But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it’s as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. And that isn’t important?’”

“If I were to command a general to turn into a seagull, and if the general did not obey, that would not be the general’s fault. It would be mine.”

“I’d like to see a sunset… Do me a favor your majesty… Command the sun to set.”

“If I commanded a general to fly from one flower to the next like a butterfly, or to write a tragedy, or to turn into a seagull, and if the general did not carry out my command, which of us would be in the wrong, the general or me?”

“You would be,” said the little prince quite firmly.

“Exactly. One must command from each what each can perform,” the king went on. “Authority is based first of all upon reason. If you command your subjects to jump in the ocean, there will be a revolution. I am entitled to command obedience because my orders are reasonable.”

“Then my sunset?” insisted the little prince, who never let go of a question once he had asked it.

“You shall have your sunset. I shall command it. But I shall wait, according to my science of government, until conditions are favorable.”

“And when will that be?” inquired the little prince.

“Well, well!” replied the king, first consulting a large calender. “Well, well! That would be around… around… that would be tonight around seven-forty! And you’ll see how well I’m obeyed.”

“That is the hardest thing of all. It is much harder to judge yourself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself, it’s because you’re truly a wise man.”

“What are you doing here,” he asked the drunkard…

“Drinking,” replied the drunkard, with a gloomy expression.

“Why are you drinking?” the little prince asked.

“To forget,” replied the drunkard.

“To forget what?” inquired the little prince, who was already feeling sorry for him.

“To forget that I’m ashamed,” confessed the drunkard, hanging his head.

“What are you ashamed of?” inquired the little prince, who wanted to help.

“Of drinking!” concluded the drunkard…

The earth is not just another planet! It contains one hundred and eleven kings (including, of course, the African kings), seven thousand geographers, nine hundred thousand businessmen, seven-and-a-half million drunkards, three-hundred-eleven million vain men; in other words, about two billion grownups.

To give you a notion of Earth’s dimensions, I can tell you that before the invention of electricity, it was necessary to maintain, over the whole of six continents, a veritable army of four-hundred-sixty-two thousand, five hundred and elevn lamplighters.

Seen from some distance, this made a spendid effect. The movements of this army were ordered like those of a ballet. First came the turn of the lamplighters of new Zealand and Australia; then these, having lit their streetlamps, would go home to sleep. Next it would be the turn of the lamplighters of China and Siberia to perform their steps in the lamplighters’ ballet, and then they too would vanish into the wings. Then came the turn of the lamplighters of Russia and India. Then those of Africa and Europe. Then those of South America and North America. And they never miss their cues for their appearances onstage. It was awe-inspiring.

Only the lamplighter of the single street lamp at the North Pole and his colleague of the single street lamp at the South Pole led carefree, idle lives: they work twice a year.

Men occupy very little space on Earth. If the two billion inhabitants of the globe were to stand close together, as they might for some public event, they would easily fit into a city block that was twenty miles long and twenty miles wide. You could crowd all humanity onto the smallest Pacific islet.

Grown-ups, of course, won’t believe you.

“Good morning,” said the little prince.

“Good morning,” said the flower.

“Where are the people?” the little prince inquired politely.

The flower had one day seen a caravan passing.

“People? there are six or seven of them, I believe, in existence. I caught sight of them years ago. But you never know where to find them. The wind blows them away. They have no roots, which hampers them a good deal.”

“Goodbye,” said the little prince.

“Goodbye,” said the flower.

“Nothing’s perfect,” sighed the fox. “My life is monotonous. I hunt chickens; people hunt me. All chickens are just alike, and all men are just alike. So I’m rather bored. But if you tame me, my life will be filled with sunshine. I’ll know the sound of footsteps that will be different from all the rest. Other footsteps send me back underground. Yours will call me out of my burrow like music. And then, look! You see the wheat fields over there? I don’t eat bread. For me, wheat is no use whatever. Wheat fields say nothing to me. Which is sad. But you have hair the color of gold. So it will be wonderful, once you’ve tamed me! The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I’ll love the sound of the wind in the wheat…”

“Language is the source of misunderstandings.”

“You’re lovely, but you’re empty,” he went on. “One couldn’t die for you. Of course an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than you altogether, since she’s the one I’ve watered. Since she’s the one I put under glass. Since she’s the one I sheltered behind a screen. Since she’s the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except for two or three for butterflies). Since’s she the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she’s my rose.”

“One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”

“Only the children know what they’re look for,” said the little prince. “They spend their lives on a rag doll and it becomes very important, and if it’s taken away from them, they cry…”

“They’re lucky,” the switchman said.

What makes the desert beautiful,” said the little prince, “is that it hides a well somewhere…”

I was surprised by suddenly understanding that mysterious radiance of the sands. When I was a little boy I lived in an old house, and there was a legend that a treasure was buried in it somewhere. Of course, no one was ever able to find the treasure, perhaps no one even searched. But it cast a spell over the whole house. My house hid a secret in the depths of its heart…

“People where you live,” the little prince said, “grow five thousand roses in one garden… yet they don’t find what they’re looking for…”

“They don’t find it,” I answered.

“And yet what they’re looking for could be found in a single rose, or a little water…”

“Of course,” I answered.

And the little prince added, “But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.”

… when someone blushes, doesn’t that mean “yes”?

You risk tears if you let yourself be tamed.

“People have stars, but they aren’t the same. For travelers, the stars are guides. For other people, they’re nothing but tiny lights. And for still others, for scholars, they’re problems. For my businessman, they were gold. But all those stars are silent stars. You, though, you’ll have stars like nobody else.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you look up at the sky at night, since I’ll be living on one of them, since I’ll be laughing on one of them, for you, it’ll be as if all the stars are laughing. You’ll have stars that can laugh!”

And he laughed again.

“And when you’re consoled (everyone is eventually consoled), you’ll be glad you’ve known me. You’ll always be my friend. You’ll feel like laughing with me. And you’ll open your windows sometimes just for the fun of it… And your friends will be amazed to see you laughing while you’re looking up at the sky. Then you’ll tell them, ‘Yes, it’s the stars. They always make me laugh!”

For me, this is the loveliest and the saddest landscape in the world. It’s the same landscape as the one on the preceeding page, but I’ve drawn it one more time to be sure you see it clearly. It’s here that the little prince appeared on Earth, then disappeared.

Look at this lanscape carefully to be sure of recognizing it, if you should travel to Africa someday, in the desert. And if you happen to pass by here, I beg you not to hurry past. Wait a little while, just under the star! Then if a child comes to you, and if he laughs, if he has golden hair, if he doesn’t answer your questions, you’ll know who he is. If this should happen, be kind! Don’t let me go on being so sad: Send word immediately that he’s come back…