The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"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 (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); 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."

All men have the stars, but they are not the same things for different people.
For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides.
For others they are no more than little lights in the sky.

I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you.

"Where are the men?" the little prince at last took up the conversation again."It is a little lonely in the desert..."
"It is also lonely among men," the snake said.

Of course I love you. It is my fault that you have not known it all the while.

Children should always show great forbearance toward grown-up people.

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!"

"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "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!"

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.

"The men where you live," said the little prince, "raise five thousand roses in the same garden — and they do not find in it what they are looking for."
"They do not find it," I replied.
"And yet what they are looking for could be found in one single rose..."

Men set out on their way in express trains, but they do not know what they are looking for.
Then they rush about, and get excited, and turn round and round...
It is not worth the trouble... But the eyes are blind.
One must look with the heart..

"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.

Kings do not own, they reign over.

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...
Please — tame me!

I ask your forgiveness.
Try to be happy...

It is on account of the grown-ups and their ways. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?" Instead, they demand: "How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?" Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.