Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is a great French writer who, with his works, forced society to look at the world differently. Exupery devoted himself not only to literary activities, but also to aviation; he was a professional pilot. The peculiarity of the author’s work is the harmonious combination of rich imagination and seen reality. The prototypes of his heroes were often friends or acquaintances; the works describe the experience of flying, the places seen and, of course, the sky.
The Citadel is considered one of Exupery's most brilliant works. The book was published posthumously. It intertwines the motifs of the parable with military prose, memoirs, literary legends, as well as reflections on the meaning of existence. In it, the writer roughly summed up his views on life and touched upon the problems of the inner world of humanity.
Citadel
Chastity is saving one's own honey in anticipation of love.
Very often temptation destroys chastity. Don't give in to it, then you will enjoy life much more.
The pain of one is no less than the pain of the whole world.
The pain can be so severe that words cannot describe, much less help.
And the Love of one - no matter how absurd it may be - rocks the stars of the Milky Way.
The love of one, if it is sincere, is a hundred times stronger than the love of ten.
Keep in mind and never forget the difference between the essential and the essential. Bread is essential, a person must be fed: a hungry person is a subhuman, he loses the ability to think.
Only a well-fed person can think sensibly. A hungry person will think only about food, this is the law of nature.
Whoever is reborn is tormented by melancholy and despair. After all, suddenly he became unnecessary.
The worst thing that can happen is to find yourself of no use to anyone...
It would be easy to live peacefully if all people were the same.
Social inequality breeds war. The rich just get bored.
Sharing what they have accumulated, people turn into wolves. By pacifying them with cruelty, you will receive cattle in the stable.
Material values awaken the beast in a person. In pursuit of them, the human form is lost.
They wallow in dirty gossip, but it seems to them that they are searching for the truth.
The truth is always obvious, there is no need to look for it...
If the one causing envy becomes equal to us, we will tear him apart with pleasure.
If someone has something more, he inevitably causes envy. And you just need to be happy for him.
I honor that which is more durable than man. I want to preserve the meaning of a wasted life.
There is meaning in life when, after you leave, you leave something good that can remind you of you.
Man is not fattening cattle; love is more important to him than benefit.
Without love, he simply would not be a person...
“Only the heart is vigilant”: Antoine de Saint-Exupery about love
The author of “The Little Prince” was known as an extremely contradictory person in love affairs. The romantic, dreaming of eternal love, from the point of view of his own wife, was the most ordinary womanizer who did not miss a single skirt. IN
When a woman seems beautiful to me, I have nothing to say. I just admire her smile.
We can say with confidence that the writer is disingenuous here. Not distinguished by outstanding external data, who did not (for the time being) have a penny in his pocket, Exupery was excellent at mastering the most intelligent method of seduction - he charmed women with words. Not a single one of the ladies he conquered was deprived of his share of “beautiful words”; relations with many of them were based mainly on this. But first things first.
Reason gains value only when it serves love.
In 1930, Tonio, as his relatives called the writer, arrived in Buenos Aires. The heir to a noble family, who chose a career as a pilot in the early 20s, over the past decade managed to work as a pilot delivering mail along the northern coast of Africa, and also wrote his first novel, “Southern Postal,” about this experience.
The aspiring writer came to Argentina on business - he was appointed director of the local branch of the airline. Here, in Buenos Aires, Exupery met the widow of the Argentine writer Gomez Carrillo, Consuela Sunsin Sandoval.
Here is my secret, it is very simple: only the heart is vigilant. You can't see the most important thing with your eyes.
On the very first evening, Tonio put Senora Carrillo on his plane, and then, rising high above the ground, he fixed the control stick and demanded that the girl kiss him. Having never flown before, Consuelo, of course, could not resist.
The evening in the sky was followed by a night, which they also spent together. Tonio did not let the beauty sleep a wink, reading chapters from his new novel “Night Flight”, which he began working on immediately upon his arrival in Argentina…. In a word, the writer fell in love.
Then there were thousands of compliments and confessions. Exupery compared the girl with a flower, with a beautiful rose: later it was from Consuelo that the writer copied the image of the capricious, prickly, but very tender Rose in “The Little Prince”.
Less than a week has passed since they met, and the writer has already proposed to the girl.
If you love a flower that grows somewhere on a distant star, it’s good to look at the sky at night. All the stars are blooming.
However, neither Tonio nor the Little Prince was obviously able to be with their Rose all the time. The “heavenly” romance very soon came to an end. The couple moved to Paris and the writer, who had previously often disappeared on duty, now disappeared not only in the night sky.
Exupery's second book, Night Flight, turned the writer into a real star. Tonio became a welcome guest in any Parisian living room, gladly accepting the love and attention of not only journalists, but also all the beauties of the French world.
For Consuelo, this meant one thing - burning jealousy was added to the constant fear for her husband’s life. At first, Tonio tried to convince his wife that her claims were unfounded. However, the truth was breaking out.
One day, while sorting out her husband’s suitcase, Consuelo came across a stack of scented letters addressed to another woman, Nellie de Vogue. Exupery had to explain himself: “I love you with all my heart,” he told his wife. “I love you like a sister, like a daughter, like my homeland.” But I can't tear myself away from her. I can’t live a day without seeing her.”
However, they never really managed to separate. Consuelo packed her things and set off by sea to her homeland. However, on the way home she was caught by the news that Exupery’s plane had crashed again. Without thinking twice, she rushed to the scene of the accident to nurse her unlucky husband.
When you let yourself be tamed, then it happens that you cry.
However, another disaster changed little in their relationship. Tonio appreciated his wife's concern, but preferred to continue to keep her at a distance. Now the couple lived separately, communicating mainly by letters and telegrams.
When war broke out, Exupery sent his wife to the south of France. He himself, after spending about 2 years at the front, moved to the States, where he again plunged into writing, spending his leisure hours in the company of his American friends and their girlfriends.
Consuelo learned that her husband was in America only after the fact - from a friend who reported that her husband was “hanging around with all the blondes in the city.” It took Tonio living in New York for almost a year to finally transfer his wife overseas.
“You are my wife, my dear wife, I cherish you every second of my life. I need you to be able to understand me as a mother understands her son. I need exactly this kind of love,” - with these words, according to the recollections of Consuelo herself, her husband greeted her.
The woman in love had no choice but to accept these conditions - this was the only way she had a chance to sometimes see her husband.
When in the spring of 1942, Exupery received an order to write a children's book, Consuelo surrounded her husband with care: she rented a house in Northport, equipped an office for work, and kept house. Tonio repaid her by creating the image of Rose, the Little Prince’s beloved, whom he leaves alone on a distant planet, but never leaves her in his thoughts.
Consuelo was happy. The time spent in Northport gave her hope that she had managed to regain her husband's affections. After all, the beloved was close again and, it seemed, finally had no intention of running away.
However, in 1944 the idyll came to an end. Tonio was fed up with the cozy family nest and once again decided to go to the front. And in the summer of the same year, Major Saint-Exupéry’s plane did not return from the mission.
To fall in love means to see the picture through the fragmentation of the world. Love is the acquisition of divinity.
No matter how much Consuelo wanted, she was far from the only woman in Exupery’s life. In addition to many short-term relationships, the writer had at least 2 serious affairs over the years of marriage. The connection with Nellie de Vogue became the reason for the separation of the spouses; another affair - with the granddaughter of the Russian Emperor Alexander II, Natalie Paley - was remembered by descendants as the writer's last love.
Thanks to this passion (or rather, its trace - letters), perhaps the most poignant words about love spoken by the famous writer have reached us:
“I’ll tell you the truth right away: I have had many love stories, if you can call them love stories. But I never betrayed meaningful words. I never just said “I love you,” “beloved,” just to captivate or hold on. I never mixed love and pleasure. I have even been cruel, refusing meaningful words. They came out of my mouth three times in my life. If I was overwhelmed with tenderness, I would say: “I am full of tenderness”; but didn’t say “I love you.” I told you “darling” because it’s true. I have no doubt that I will never tell this to anyone again. Insights of the heart are rare. I met love, maybe my last.”
Author: Valentina Goltsberg
Comments
Exupery about life and love
If a person betrayed someone because of you, you should not associate your life with him, sooner or later he will betray you because of someone.
A person is either capable of betrayal or not. If he betrayed you once, then rest assured, he will betray you a second time...
Don't check on your friends and loved ones. They still won't pass the test.
We ourselves create a temptation for them, and then we complain about life...
To love does not mean looking at each other, but looking together in the same direction.
You can love, and at the same time see each other extremely rarely. but at the same time moving towards the same goal together.
Only the heart is vigilant. You can't see the most important thing with your eyes.
The most important thing can only be seen by the heart and soul.
True love begins where you expect nothing in return.
If demands for bestowal begin, then it is no longer love. It's just a benefit.
Human life has no price, but we always act as if there is something even more valuable.
Life is given once, it must be appreciated.
To regret love is to still love. If you don't love, you don't regret.
Feelings that are quickly forgotten are not love, they are just infatuation.
Life is a continuous birth, and you accept yourself as you become.
But this does not mean that you should always accept everything. You also need to strive.
You can't waste love. The more you give, the more remains. When you draw from a living spring, it becomes more generous every day.
If love is running out, then it is not real. Living springs are endless.
Life has taught me what true courage is: the ability to resist the condemnation of the environment.
Courage is not even about confronting the enemy in war. This is a confrontation with evil tongues in the rear.
The threads of love that now connect a person with other people and with things are too weak, too fragile...
You need to love so that these threads do not break...
Quotes from Saint-Exupéry
Prepared by: Dmitry Sirotkin
I present to you a selection of quotes from the writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry .
The language of children was closer to him than the language of adults. Therefore, he outlined his main ideas through the mouths of the Little Prince and the Fox.
Quotes are grouped by topic: life ethics, children and adults, human manifestations, love, life, friends, death, relationships, the meaning of life, mind and Spirit, man, ordinary people, Earth, freedom, war, perfection, loneliness, common sense, truth , communication, woman, happiness, words, doctor.
In conclusion, quotes about Saint-Exupery are given.
About life ethics
You are forever responsible for everyone you have tamed.
You live in your actions, not in your body. You are your actions, and there is no other you.
Maybe it’s better not to destroy evil, but to grow good?
I love light in a person. I don't care about the thickness of the candle. The flame will tell me if the candle is good.
Here is my secret, it is very simple: only the heart is vigilant. You can't see the most important thing with your eyes.
You can’t sit still—what if there’s an oasis somewhere nearby?
I have always hated the role of observer. What am I if I don't take part? To be, I must participate.
If, feeling sorry for myself, I attribute my troubles to evil fate, I submit myself to evil fate; if I attribute them to treason, I subject myself to treason; but when I take full responsibility upon myself, I thereby defend my human capabilities.
It is much more difficult to judge yourself than others. If you can judge yourself correctly, then you are truly wise.
Only fulfilling one's duty allows a person to become something.
There is such a firm rule - get up in the morning, wash your face, put yourself in order - and immediately put your planet in order.
Before you receive, you must give, and before you live in a house, you must build it. What is not paid for mentally and physically is not felt as significant.
Don't check on your friends and loved ones. They still won't pass the test.
Infinity cannot be found. It is created within ourselves. But flight led no one anywhere.
Are you concerned about the future? Build today. You can change everything. Grow a cedar forest on a barren plain. But it is important that you do not construct cedars, but plant seeds.
There will be too much peace for those who seek it in the middle of a stormy sea.
To move forward means to understand that the question that tormented you has lost its meaning.
The fruit must ripen, then it will become sweet.
Hard labor is where the blows of a pickaxe are meaningless, where labor does not connect man to man.
Since I am inseparable from my people, I will never renounce them, no matter what they do.
Never lose patience - this is the last key that unlocks the doors.
You can love those you order, but you cannot tell them about it.
Be afraid of offending anyone, for a person does not forget his insults until he avenges them.
About children and adults
We all come from childhood.
Childhood, this huge land where everyone comes from! Where am I from? I come from my childhood, as if from some country.
All adults were children at first, but few of them remember this.
Children should be very lenient towards adults.
Adults never understand anything themselves, and it is very tiring for children to endlessly explain and explain everything to them.
I'm afraid of becoming like adults who are interested in nothing but numbers.
When you tell adults: “I saw a beautiful house made of pink brick, there are geraniums in the windows, and pigeons on the roof,” they cannot imagine this house. You have to tell them: “I saw a house for a hundred thousand francs,” and then they exclaim: “What a beauty!”
When I hear people's steps, I always run and hide. But your walk will call me like music, and I will come out of my hiding place. And then - look! Do you see the wheat ripening in the fields over there? I don't eat bread. I don't need ears of corn. The wheat fields don't tell me anything. And it's sad! But you have golden hair. And how wonderful it will be when you tame me! Golden wheat will remind me of you. And I will love the rustle of ears of corn in the wind...
The child is not horrified by the fact that he is patiently preparing the old man within himself. He is a child and he plays his childhood games.
By the way, quotes about children
About human manifestations
A person notices in the world only what he already carries within himself.
There are highway people and path people. Highway people bore me. I'm bored with crushed stone and kilometer posts. Highway people have a clearly defined goal. Profit, ambition. And along the path, instead of kilometer posts, there are hazel trees. You wander along it and crack nuts. You are on it to simply be on it.
I have always divided humanity into two parts. There are garden people and house people. These people carry their home with them everywhere, and you suffocate within their four walls. You have to chat with them to break the silence. Silence in homes is painful. But they are walking in the gardens. There you can be silent and breathe the air. You feel at ease there. And happy discoveries themselves appear in front of you. There is no need to search for anything.
Often the smile is the most important thing. Thank you with a smile. They reward you with a smile. They give you life with a smile. And there is a smile for which you will die.
Melancholy is when you crave something, you don’t know what...
Fear arises when you lose confidence that you are you. Poems that are in tune with the heart bring tears to the eyes.
If a fool reads poetry, he is mistaken for a poet. They believe that he likes shabby, holey parquet, they believe that he loves mongoose. They give him their heart - a wild garden, and he only likes trimmed lawns. And the idiot takes the princess into slavery.
About love
Loving does not mean looking at each other, loving means looking together in the same direction.
A favorite flower is, first of all, a rejection of all other flowers.
Love is happiness, fairly flavored with suffering.
Love - there is no arguing about it. She is.
We love everyone who gives us light.
We love the one we care about.
Separation will teach you to truly love.
True love begins where nothing is expected in return.
Love is first of all an exercise in prayer, and prayer is an exercise in silence.
Do not confuse love with the thirst for possession, which brings so much torment. Contrary to popular belief, love does not cause pain. The instinct of property is tormenting.
If you love without hope of reciprocity, remain silent about your love. In silence it will become fruitful.
To regret love is to still love. If you don't love, you don't regret.
By the way, quotes about love
About life
To live means to be born slowly.
Life manifests itself not in states, but in actions.
That's how life works. At first we become richer, because for many years we planted trees, but then years come when time turns our labors into dust and cuts down the forest. One by one, friends leave, depriving us of refuge. And, while grieving for those who have passed on, you are also secretly sad that you yourself are getting old.
In reality, everything is different from what it really is.
Ridiculous planet, ridiculous problems, ridiculous language. Maybe there is a star somewhere where they live simply.
Life isn't easy either.
Do you know why the desert is good? “There are springs hidden somewhere in it.”
I was waiting for life to give me a sign, but it didn’t come.
Order is created by life, but it itself does not create life.
We live in the blind womb of the administration.
By the way, quotes about life
About friends
It takes a long time to cultivate a friendship before a friend lays claim to you.
Friends ready to help us are found quickly. It is much more difficult to earn friends who expect help from us.
People no longer have enough time to learn anything. They buy things ready-made in stores. But there are no such shops where friends would trade, and therefore people no longer have friends.
This is how my Fox used to be. He was no different from a hundred thousand other foxes. But I became friends with him, and now he is the only one in the whole world.
It's good to have a friend, even if you're about to die.
No, no one will replace a dead comrade. You can't make old friends quickly.
My friend, I need you like a mountain peak where I can breathe freely!
You accept me as I am, and therefore, if necessary, you will come to terms with both my reasoning and actions.
By the way, quotes about friendship
About death
They die only for what is worth living for.
It is necessary that what you die for is worth death itself.
They die for the house, but not for things and walls. They die for the cathedral - not for the stones. They die for the people - not for the crowd.
Everyone who is alive, I know, is afraid to die. They are frightened in advance by the upcoming meeting. But believe me, I have never seen a dying person afraid to die. So why should I feel sorry for him? Why cry at his bedside?
With the death of each person, the unknown world dies.
Death is something huge. This is a new chain of connections with the thoughts, things, habits of the deceased. This is a new world order. It looks like nothing has changed, but in reality everything has changed. The pages in the book are the same, but its meaning has become different. To feel death, we must imagine those hours when we need the deceased. That's when we miss him. Imagine the hours when he might need us. But he doesn't need us anymore. Imagine an hour of friendly visiting. And feel its emptiness.
About relationships
A person is just a knot of relationships. And only relationships are important for a person.
When you let yourself be tamed, then it happens that you cry.
He was free, yes - too free, he walked too easily on the earth. He missed the burden of human relationships, which makes his step heavy, he missed tears, farewells, reproaches, joys - everything that a person cherishes.
I didn’t understand anything then! It was necessary to judge not by words, but by deeds. She gave me her scent and illuminated my life. I shouldn't have run. Behind these pitiful tricks and tricks one had to guess the tenderness. The flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young, I didn’t know how to love yet.
If a person betrayed someone because of you, you should not associate your life with him, sooner or later he will betray you because of someone.
About the meaning of life
You are looking for meaning in life; but its only meaning is for you to finally come true.
The truth of a person is what makes him a person.
Although human life is more valuable than anything in the world, we always act as if there is something even more valuable in the world than human life... But what?
But if I am ready to give only to myself, I receive nothing, because I do not create anything from which I cannot be separated, which means I am nothing.
By working only for material benefits, we build a prison for ourselves.
They always grieve about one thing - about the time that has passed, leaving nothing behind, about the wasted days.
By the way, quotes about the meaning of life
About Mind and Spirit
Only the Spirit fertilizes the mind. The Spirit throws into him the seed of future creation. The mind will complete the rest.
The life of the Spirit is sometimes interrupted. Only the life of the Mind is continuous or almost continuous. Silence is the only space where the Spirit spreads its wings.
Reason gains value only when it serves love.
Temptation is the temptation to yield to the arguments of Reason when the Spirit sleeps.
Illumination only means that the path that was slowly being prepared was suddenly revealed to the Spirit.
By the way, quotes about the mind
About a human
To be human means to feel that you are responsible for everything.
You have to go through a lot to become human.
There is only one true value - the connection between person and person.
The basis of our unity is the Man who is higher than each of us.
By the way, quotes about a person
About ordinary people
There are too many people in the world who have not been helped to awaken.
You built your quiet little world, tightly walled up all the exits to the light, like termites do. You curled up in a ball, took refuge in your philistine well-being, in your inert habits, in your musty provincial way of life, you erected this wretched stronghold and hid from the wind, from the sea surf and the stars. You don’t want to bother yourself with great tasks; you already had to work hard to forget that you are a human being.
About Earth
The earth helps us understand ourselves in a way that no books can help. For the earth resists us.
The earth itself knows what kind of grain it needs.
Damn it, is this planet habitable or not?
About freedom
What does it mean to free? If in the desert I free a man who is not striving anywhere, what will his freedom cost?
It is easy to establish order in a society by subordinating each member to unshakable rules. It is easy to raise a blind person who, without protest, would obey a guide or the Koran. How much more difficult it is to free a person by teaching him to rule over himself.
By the way, quotes about freedom
About war
War is not a feat. War is a disease.
War is not a real feat, war is a surrogate for a feat.
Victory weakens the people; defeat awakens new strength in him.
By the way, quotes about war
About perfection
As you can see, perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when nothing can be taken away.
Perfection is the virtue of the dead.
About loneliness
It’s also lonely among people,” the snake noted.
In our world, all living things gravitate towards their own kind, even flowers, bending in the wind, mix with other flowers, a swan knows all swans - and only people withdraw into solitude.
By the way, quotes about loneliness
About common sense
What about common sense? His job is to explain life, let him get out of it any way he wants.
Logically you can prove anything.
About truth
Truth is what makes the world simpler, and not what turns it into chaos.
Truth is not something that can be proven; truth is simplicity.
About communication
The only luxury I know is the luxury of human communication.
You can only learn those things that you tame.
About the woman
Woman is the most obvious living flesh, which radiates the most gentle light.
You should never listen to what flowers say. You just have to look at them and breathe in their scent.
By the way, quotes about women
Oh happiness
Happiness is spending yourself on the creation of your own hands, which will live even after your death.
When we understand our role on earth, even the most modest and inconspicuous, then only we will be happy. Then only we will be able to live and die in peace, for what gives the meaning of life also gives the meaning of death.
By the way, quotes about happiness
About words
Words only interfere with understanding each other.
We are all like a person who, in his poor words, explains to the sad person that he has nothing to be sad about. But can a word cope with grief?
By the way, quotes about speech and words
About the doctor
A doctor, examining a patient, does not listen to groans: it is important for a doctor to heal a person. The doctor serves the laws of the universal.
The doctor’s duty was to risk his life to treat a person with the plague, no matter who he was. The doctor served God.
About miscellaneous
A tree that has its roots deep in the soil is beautiful.
It is only thanks to the wind that a sailboat is free on the open sea.
Tears are the rain that takes away the storm.
Water! You have no taste, no color, no smell, you cannot be described, you are enjoyed without understanding what you are. You are not just necessary for life, you are life. With you, bliss spreads throughout your entire being, which cannot be explained only by our five senses.
You can only be brothers in something and you cannot be brothers in general.
Demagoguery arises when, in the absence of a general measure, the principle of equality degenerates into the principle of identity.
The victim loses all greatness if it becomes only a parody of the victim or a suicide.
Success comes from many unsuccessful efforts.
The greatness of any craft, perhaps, lies primarily in the fact that it unites people: for there is nothing in the world more precious than the bonds that connect man to man.
Here's a box for you. And inside it sits the kind of lamb you want.
As is usually the case with romantics, Saint-Exupéry lived a controversial, intense life . He found it difficult to live up to his own ideals. Like a child at heart, he was carried away by various temptations of life, got involved in obvious adventures, and cried from failures. But, probably, it was precisely thanks to all this that he was able to write such heartfelt and talented works for us.
Characteristic themes specifically for Saint-Exupery’s quotes turned out to be “children and adults”, “friends”, “the meaning of life”, “mind and Spirit”.
Quotes about Saint-Exupery
- J.-P. Sartre: Saint-Exupery showed us the way, he discovered that for the pilot an airplane becomes an organ of feeling. Mountains at a speed of 600 kilometers per hour and in a new flight perspective seem like a ball of snakes. The speed collects and compresses folds of the earth's cover around the aircraft. (by the way, quotes from Jean-Paul Sartre)
- C. de Saint-Exupery: Our family, created on the sands of Africa, could not stand life on the too smooth asphalt of Paris. Everything here was flat, gray, boring. To brighten up and color this dull routine, it took tears, champagne, lies, betrayals...
- G. Gallimard: There was passion, tenderness, and mutual admiration between them, but I have never seen two people who love each other so much be so unhappy in marriage. (about Antoine and Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry)
- A. Gide: Saint-Exupery brought a new book and a bride from Argentina. I read the book and saw the bride. Congratulated him, but mostly on the book
- A. Maurois: Aviator, civil and military pilot, essayist and poet, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, after Vigny, Stendhal, Vauvenargues, together with Malraux, Jules Roy, as well as several soldiers and sailors, is one of the few novelists and philosophers actions that our country has given birth to. (by the way, quotes from Andre Maurois)
Next, you can move on to other collections of quotes:
- Hemingway quotes
- Coco Chanel quotes
- Remarque quotes
- Churchill quotes
- Mark Twain quotes
- Bradbury quotes
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