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Wind, Sand and Stars

Book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry · 22 quotes · Humanity, Adventure, Earth

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Wind, Sand and Stars Quotes

“How shallow is the stage on which this vast drama of human hates and joys and friendships is played! Whence do men draw this passion for eternity, flung by chance as they are upon a scarcely cooled bed of lava, threatened by the beginning by the deserts that are to be, under the constant menace of the snows? Their civilizations are but fragile gildings: a volcano can blot them out, a new sea, a sand-storm.”

PhilosophyWisdomJoyTimeHumanityFriendshipBeing HumanHumanity And SocietyTimelessnessLifespan
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“I picked up one and then a second and then a third of these stones, finding them at about the rate of one stone to the acre. And here is where my adventure became magical, for in a striking foreshortening of time that embraced thousands of years, I had become the witness of this miserly rain from the stars. the marvel of marvels was that there on the rounded back of the planet, between this magnetic sheet and those stars, a human consciousness was present in which as in a mirror that rain could be reflected.”

TimeConsciousnessMagicAdventureHumanWitnessDesertLandscape
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“Oh you whom I have loved, farewell. It is not my fault that the human body cannot survive three days without drinking. I did not believe I was so imprisoned by the sources. I did not suspect such a short autonomy. It is believed that man can march straight ahead. It is believed that man is free... One does not see the rope that binds him to the well, that binds him like an umbilical cord to the belly of the earth. If he takes one more step, he dies.”

EarthHumanityNatureObstaclesMan
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“As for you who save us, Bedouin of Libya, you will nevertheless be erased forever from my memory. I will never remember your face. You are the Man, and you appear to me with the face of all men together. You have not even looked at us in the face and you have already recognized us. You are the beloved brother. And, in turn, I will recognize you in all men. You appear to me illuminated with nobility and benevolence, a great lord who has the power to give drink. In you, all my friends and my enemies walk toward me, and I no longer have a single enemy in the world.”

Humanity
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“When I opened my eyes, I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with outstretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake, still unaware that those depths were sky, having no roof between those depths and me, no branches to screen them, no root to cling to, I was seized with vertigo and felt myself as if flung forth and plunging downward like a diver. But I did not fall. From nape to heel I discovered myself bound to earth. I felt a sort of appeasement in surrendering to it my weight. Gravitation had become as sovereign as love. The earth, I felt, was supporting my back, sustaining me, lifting me up, transporting me through the immense void of night.”

LoveEarthStarsNatureFreedomSpaceDreamsAdventureGravityConstellationsNight SkyEarthy
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“Si je cherche dans mes souvenirs ceux qui m'ont laissé un goût durable, si je fais le bilan des heures qui ont compté, à coup sûr je retrouve celles que nulle fortune ne m'eût procurées. On n'achète pas l'amitié d'un Mermoz, d'un compagnon que les épreuves vécues ensemble ont lié à nous pour toujours. Cette nuit de vol et ses cent mille étoiles, cette sérénité, cette souveraineté de quelques heures, l'argent ne les achète pas. Cet aspect neuf du monde après l'étape difficile, ces arbres, ces fleurs, ces femmes, ces sourires fraîchement colorés par la vie qui vient de nous être rendue à l'aube, ce concert de petites choses qui nous récompensent, l'argent ne les achète pas.”

VieRichesseArgent
Book:Wind, Sand and Stars
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“Rien, jamais, en effet, ne remplacera le compagnon perdu. On ne se crée point de vieux camarades. Rien ne vaut le trésor de tant de souvenirs communs, de tant de mauvaises heures vécues ensemble, de tant de brouilles, de réconciliations, de mouvements du coeur. On ne reconstruit pas ces amitiés-là. Il est vain, si l'on plante un chêne, d'espérer s'abriter bientôt sous son feuillage.”

VieAmitiéAmis
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“I looked about me. Luminous points glowed in the darkness. Cigarettes punctuated the humble meditations of worn old clerks. I heard them talking to one another in murmurs and whispers. They talked about illness, money, shabby domestic cares. And suddenly I had a vision of the face of destiny. Old bureaucrat, my comrade, it is not you who are to blame. No one ever helped you to escape. You, like a termite, built your peace by blocking up with cement every chink and cranny through which the light might pierce. You rolled yourself up into a ball in your genteel security, in routine, in the stifling conventions of provincial life, raising a modest rampart against the winds and the tides and the stars. You have chosen not to be perturbed by great problems, having trouble enough to forget your own fate as a man. You are not the dweller upon an errant planet and do not ask yourself questions to which there are no answers. Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and naught in you will ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the astronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning.”

Inspirational
Book:Wind, Sand and Stars
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