Flanman's blog: "Quotes from one of my favorite authors"

Here is my favorite part of my all time favorite book, The Little Prince. It is a little long but well worth reading. The fox's secret is my favorite quote of anything I have ever read. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. "Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at." "I am a fox," the fox said. "Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy." "I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed." "Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince. But, after some thought, he added: "What does that mean--'tame'?" "You do not live here," said the fox. "What is it that you are looking for?" "I am looking for men," said the little prince. "What does that mean--'tame'?" "Men," said the fox. "They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?" "No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean--'tame'?" "It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties." "'To establish ties'?" "Just that," said the fox. "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 inall the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ." "My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "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 . . ." The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time. "Please--tame me!" he said. "I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things tounderstand." "One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "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. If you want a friend, tame me . . ." So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near-- "Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry." "It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . ." "Yes, that is so," said the fox. "But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince. "Yes, that is so," said the fox. "Then it has done you no good at all!" "It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." "Goodbye," he said. "Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what isessential is invisible to the eye." "What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember. "Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. I remembered the fox. One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed . . . - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.” “A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself -- to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart.” " Love yourself—accept yourself—forgive yourself—and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.” "We seem to gain wisdom more readily through our failures than through our successes. We always think of failure as the antithesis of success, but it isn't. Success often lies just the other side of failure.” "Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love you will find that you are left holding only yourself.” “Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.” "Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” “Life lived for tomorrow will always be just a day away from being realized.” “We need others. We need others to love and we need to be loved by them. There is no doubt that without it, we too, like the infant left alone, would cease to grow, cease to develop, choose madness and even death.” “The hardest battle you're ever going to fight is the battle to be just you.” “The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position.” “Happiness and love are just a choice away.” “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.” “Risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.” “Time has no meaning in itself unless we choose to give it significance.” “Most of us are pawns in a game of love we don't understand.” "Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations. Don't over-analyze your relationships. Stop playing games. A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness.” “What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.” "Life is uncharted territory. It reveals its story one moment at a time.” “Love withers with predictability; its very essence is surprise and amazement. To make love a prisoner of the mundane is to take its passion and lose it forever.” "When we cling to pain we end up punishing ourselves.” "Don't smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.” “I believe that you control your destiny, that you can be what you want to be. You can also stop and say, 'No, I won't do it, I won't behave his way anymore. I'm lonely and I need people around me, maybe I have to change my methods of behaving,' and then you do it.” "Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time... It tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other.” "No amount of time can erase the memory of a good cat, and no amount of masking tape can ever totally remove his fur from your couch.” “Love is not some complex, mystical abstraction. It is something accessible and human that we learn through our everyday experience, as often at times of failure as in moments of ecstasy.” “It is difficult for some people to accept that love is a choice. This seems to run counter to the generally accepted theory of romantic love which expounds that love is inborn and as such requires no more than to accept it.”

“A single rose can be my garden...a single friend, my world.” Leo Buscaglia “Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time...It tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other.” Leo Buscaglia “Don't brood. Get on with living and loving. You don't have forever.” Leo Buscaglia “Don't smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.” Leo Buscaglia “I believe that you control your destiny, that you can be what you want to be. You can also stop and say, No, I won't do it, I won't behave his way anymore. I'm lonely and I need people around me, maybe I have to change my methods of behaving and then you do it.” Leo Buscaglia “I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate - it's apathy. It's not giving a damn.” Leo Buscaglia “I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things... I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind.” Leo Buscaglia “I've always thought that people need to feel good about themselves and I see my role as offering support to them, to provide some light along the way. “ Leo Buscaglia “If I don't have wisdom, I can teach you only ignorance.” Leo Buscaglia “If we wish to free ourselves from enslavement, we must choose freedom and the responsibility this entails. “ Leo Buscaglia “Life lived for tomorrow will always be just a day away from being realized.” Leo Buscaglia “Love always creates, it never destroys. In this lies man's only promise.” Leo Buscaglia “Love is always bestowed as a gift - freely, willingly and without expectation. We don't love to be loved; we love to love”. Leo Buscaglia “Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love you will find that you are left holding only yourself.” Leo Buscaglia “Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.” Leo Buscaglia “Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations.” Leo Buscaglia “The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position.” Leo Buscaglia “The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.” Leo Buscaglia “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around”. Leo Buscaglia “We all need each other.” Leo Buscaglia “What love we've given, we'll have forever. What love we fail to give, will be lost for all eternity.” Leo Buscaglia “What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.” Leo Buscaglia “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.” Leo Buscaglia “Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.” Leo Buscaglia “A wonderful realization will be the day you realize that you are unique in all the world. There is nothing that is an accident. You are a special combination for a purpose-and don't let them tell you otherwise, even if they tell you that purpose is an illusion. (Live an illusion if you have to). You are that combination so that you can do what is essential for you to do. Don't ever believe that you have nothing to contribute. The world is an incredible unfulfilled tapestry. And only you can fulfill that tiny space that is yours.” Leo Buscaglia

"Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction” “Perhaps love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself” “I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.” “True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.” “A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.” “The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves, but in our attitude towards them.” “Love does not cause suffering: what causes it is the sense of ownership, which is love's opposite” “What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.” “Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life. It is not something discovered: it is something molded.” “What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.” “Each man carries within him the soul of a poet who died young” “Only the unknown frightens men. But once a man has faced the unknown, that terror becomes the known.” “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” “For true love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have. And if you go to draw at the true fountainhead, the more water you draw, the more abundant is its flow.” “When you give yourself, you receive more than you give.” "To be a man is to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world." “I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin.” “True love begins when nothing is looked for in return” "Life has meaning only if one barters it day by day for something other than itself." "Only he can understand what a farm is, what a country is, who shall have sacrificed part of himself to his farm or country, fought to save it, struggled to make it beautiful. Only then will the love of farm or country fill his heart." "The notion of looking on at life has always been hateful to me. What am I if I am not a participant? In order to be, I must participate." "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." "He who is different from me does not impoverish me - he enriches me. Our unity is constituted in something higher than ourselves - in Man... For no man seeks to hear his own echo, or to find his reflection in the glass." "True, it is evil that a single man should crush the herd, but see not there the worse form of slavery, which is when the herd crushes out the man." "Tell me who admires and loves you, and I will tell you who you are." "Tears are a kind of wealth."

"Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." "But the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart." "Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them "I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn't much improved my opinion of them "Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed." "One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed." All quotes are from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry