小王子摘抄
You know —— one loves the sunset, when one is so sad…
If someone loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows in all the millions and millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars.
Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her…
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 in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world.
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.
Men have not more time to understand anything. They buy things already made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more.
You are beautiful, but you are empty. One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passer —— by 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 she 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 even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.
And now here is my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eyes.
It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.
Men have forgotten this truth. But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose…
As for me, if I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water.
What moves me so deeply, about this little prince who is sleeping here, is his loyalty to a flower —— the image of a rose that shine through his whole being like the flame of a lamp, even when he is asleep…
The men where you live, raise five thousand roses in the same garden —— and they do not find in it what they are looking for. And yet what they are looking for could be found in one single rose, or in a little water. But eyes are blind. One must look with the heart…
If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are abloom with flowers…
My star will be just one of the stars, for you. And so you will love to watch all the stars in the heavens… They will be your friends.
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. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all these stars are silent. You —— you alone —— will have the stars as no one else has them…
In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night… You —— only you —— will have stars that can laugh…
And when your sorrow is comforted time soothes all sorrows you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure… And your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them, “Yes, the stars always make me laugh!”
I cannot carry this body with me. It is too heavy. But it will be like an old abandoned shell. There is nothing sad about old shells…
All the stars will be wells with a rusty pulley. All the stars will pour out fresh water for me to drink… That will be so amusing! You will have five hundred million little bells, and I shall have five hundred million springs of fresh water…
You know —— my flower… I am responsible for her. And she is so weak! She is so na?ve! She has four thorns, of no use at all, to protect herself against the world…there now —— that is all…
