"Since she's MY rose"-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"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."

After Conference last weekend, and the quote from The Litte Prince, I went back and reread the book in its orginal French. How I love this little book, Le Petit Prince! He is as we all should be. See ourselves as our Savior would, becoming as little children. I thought that I would share some of my favorite quotes from the book...Dans L'Anglais, Évidemment!

Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for
children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

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..."

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

You risk tears if you let yourself be tamed.

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...

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

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.

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.

"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...

"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

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 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!"

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.

... 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.

All grown-ups were children first. (But few remember it).

“You know--one loves the sunset, when one is so sad…”“Were you so sad,
then?” I asked, “on the day of the forty-four sunsets?”But the little prince
made no reply.

“I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He had never smelled a flower. He has never looked at a star. He has never loved any one. He
has never done anything in his life but add up figures.”

To conceited men, all other men are admirers.

Nevertheless he is the only one of them all who does not seem to me
ridiculous. Perhaps that is because he is thinking of something else besides
himself.”

And as I gave it to him my heart was torn.

It is such a secret place, the land of tears.

and last but not least...

Wait for a time, exactly under the star. Then, if a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair and who refuses to answer questions, you will know who he is. If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back.




Oh to be more like The Little Prince!