What do you think?
Rate this book
The Little Prince: Popular Penguins
Paperback
Published January 1, 2010
5 people want to read
About the author
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
1,545 books8,740 followersPeople best know French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry for his fairy tale
The Little Prince
(1943).
He flew for the first time at the age of 12 years in 1912 at the Ambérieu airfield and then determined to a pilot. Even after moving to a school in Switzerland and spending summer vacations at the château of the family at Saint-Maurice-de-Rémens in east, he kept that ambition. He repeatedly uses the house at Saint-Maurice.
Later, in Paris, he failed the entrance exams for the naval academy and instead enrolled at the prestigious l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1921, Saint-Exupéry, stationed in Strasbourg, began serving in the military. He learned and forever settled his career path as a pilot. After leaving the service in 1923, Saint-Exupéry worked in several professions but in 1926 went back and signed as a pilot for Aéropostale, a private airline that from Toulouse flew mail to Dakar, Senegal. In 1927, Saint-Exupéry accepted the position of airfield chief for Cape Juby in southern Morocco and began his first book, a memoir, called Southern Mail and published in 1929.
He then moved briefly to Buenos Aires to oversee the establishment of an Argentinean mail service, returned to Paris in 1931, and then published Night Flight , which won instant success and the prestigious Prix Femina. Always daring Saint-Exupéry tried from Paris in 1935 to break the speed record for flying to Saigon. Unfortunately, his plane crashed in the Libyan Desert, and he and his copilot trudged through the sand for three days to find help. In 1938, a second plane crash at that time, as he tried to fly between city of New York and Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, seriously injured him. The crash resulted in a long convalescence in New York.
He published Wind, Sand and Stars , next novel, in 1939. This great success won the grand prize for novel of the academy and the national book award in the United States. Saint-Exupéry flew reconnaissance missions at the beginning of the Second World War but went to New York to ask the United States for help when the Germans occupied his country. He drew on his wartime experiences to publish Flight to Arras and Letter to a Hostage in 1942.
Later in 1943, Saint-Exupéry rejoined his air squadron in northern Africa. From earlier plane crashes, Saint-Exupéry still suffered physically, and people forbade him to fly, but he insisted on a mission. From Borgo, Corsica, on 31 July 1944, he set to overfly occupied region. He never returned.
He flew for the first time at the age of 12 years in 1912 at the Ambérieu airfield and then determined to a pilot. Even after moving to a school in Switzerland and spending summer vacations at the château of the family at Saint-Maurice-de-Rémens in east, he kept that ambition. He repeatedly uses the house at Saint-Maurice.
Later, in Paris, he failed the entrance exams for the naval academy and instead enrolled at the prestigious l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1921, Saint-Exupéry, stationed in Strasbourg, began serving in the military. He learned and forever settled his career path as a pilot. After leaving the service in 1923, Saint-Exupéry worked in several professions but in 1926 went back and signed as a pilot for Aéropostale, a private airline that from Toulouse flew mail to Dakar, Senegal. In 1927, Saint-Exupéry accepted the position of airfield chief for Cape Juby in southern Morocco and began his first book, a memoir, called Southern Mail and published in 1929.
He then moved briefly to Buenos Aires to oversee the establishment of an Argentinean mail service, returned to Paris in 1931, and then published Night Flight , which won instant success and the prestigious Prix Femina. Always daring Saint-Exupéry tried from Paris in 1935 to break the speed record for flying to Saigon. Unfortunately, his plane crashed in the Libyan Desert, and he and his copilot trudged through the sand for three days to find help. In 1938, a second plane crash at that time, as he tried to fly between city of New York and Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, seriously injured him. The crash resulted in a long convalescence in New York.
He published Wind, Sand and Stars , next novel, in 1939. This great success won the grand prize for novel of the academy and the national book award in the United States. Saint-Exupéry flew reconnaissance missions at the beginning of the Second World War but went to New York to ask the United States for help when the Germans occupied his country. He drew on his wartime experiences to publish Flight to Arras and Letter to a Hostage in 1942.
Later in 1943, Saint-Exupéry rejoined his air squadron in northern Africa. From earlier plane crashes, Saint-Exupéry still suffered physically, and people forbade him to fly, but he insisted on a mission. From Borgo, Corsica, on 31 July 1944, he set to overfly occupied region. He never returned.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 19, 2023
“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they must be felt with the heart”. This is magical, special and something I could pick up and read over and over again.
December 26, 2023
Antoine De Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince I initially had as an audiobook cassette many many years ago. I had never listened to it. I made the assumption of a cartoon small character standing on a moon on the front to not be a great story and ended up giving it to an op shop. In the last year I had continually seen it in the Classics shelf of bookstores and had heard from others that it was a lovely story with some noteworthy quotes, so I decided to give it a read.
The Little Prince, although short and containing some illustrations can be advertised to young readers but conveys complex ideas for an adult audience to consume and enjoy. Exupery examines love, loss, isolation, belonging, friendships, death, language and the need to feel connected. There is a link with the cost of life but this is taken further by indicating that quality relationships can't be purchased. They require time, patience and understanding or "taming." Readers can believe that the prince is a small human or child and he often refers to people older than him not as adults but grown-ups. He is often challenging their thoughts and providing reasons why he dislikes them but by referring to them as grown-ups he draws a connection to the size difference. Are children less opiniated, knowledgeable and incapable of things in life?
A major motif or symbol in The Little Prince is the rose. When the rose blooms, Exupery demonstrates this in the form of a performance, a magical process. Interesting, the prince often refers to the rose as 'her' or 'she' in which the rose isn't just a plant but a girl, his girl, his lover and the greens and reds of the flower are her robes. He does everything for this rose and believes in giving one's whole self in a relationship. The Little Prince often explores the beauty of the simplicities of life and how these can be so often overlooked particularly by adults. Grown-ups are so invested in figures but don't see the authenticity of people or the loveliness of homes. The prince just believes in living in slow motion, connectedness and desires to be loved by all he encounters. This is definitely a read where you will be asking questions about the small but real things in life and considering what truly matters in this world.
Favourite quotes:
"Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is exhausting for children always and forever to be giving explanations."
"And so it was that I made the acquaintance of the little prince."
"So you fell from the sky. Which planet are you from."
"I knew very well that besides the important planets - Earth, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and so on - to which names have been given, there are also hundreds of others, some so small that one has trouble finding them even through the telescope. When an astronomer discovers one of these, he gives it a number instead of a name."
"Grown-ups are like that."
"Grown-ups love figures. When you describe a new friend to them, they never ask you about the important things. They never say 'what's his voice like?' 'What's his favourite games?' 'Does he collect butterflies?' instead they demand: 'How old is he?' 'How many brothers does he have?' 'How much does his father earn?'"
"Only then do they feel they know him. If you say to the grown-ups 'I've seen a lovely house with pink bricks and geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof', they are unable to picture such a house. You must say I saw a house that cost one hundred thousand. Then they say 'how pretty.'
"The grown-ups will treat you like a child."
"To forget a friend is sad."
"Grown-ups don't care for anything except figures."
"He carefully swept out his active volcanoes. They were useful for heating up breakfast in the morning. If they are well swept they burn slowly and steadily without erupting. Here on Earth we are far too small to sweep out volcanoes."
"If someone loves a flower, of which there is only one example of al the millions and millions of stars, that is enough to make him happy when he looks up at the night sky. He says to himself, 'somewhere out there is my flower.'"
"On one star, one planet, this planet, the Earth, there was a little prince in need of consoling. I took him in my arms and cradled him. I told him the flower you love is not in danger... I'll draw you a muzzle for your sheep... I'll draw you a shield to put round your flower."
"It is such a secret place - the land of tears."
"Closeted in her green room, however, this flower took an age preparing herself to be beautiful. She chose her colours with care. She dressed slowly, adjusting her petals one by one. She wanted to appear in the full radiance of her beauty. She was very stylish!"
"The little prince could not contain his admiration 'my you are so beautiful'"
"Would you be so kind as to attend to me."
"You just simply gaze them and breathe them in. I was too young to know how to love her."
"Leave that glass alone. Don't hang about like that."
"Grown-ups are very strange."
"To admire means to admit I am the handsomest, the best-dressed, the richest, the most intelligent person on this planet."
"Kings do not own. They reign over. There is a difference."
"When you find a diamond that belongs to no one it belongs to you. If you find an island that belongs to no one it is yours and if you have an idea you come up with first you patent it."
"I myself own a flower which I water every day and three volcanoes I sweep out each week."
"What is beautiful is useful."
"I have left her all alone on my planet."
"She matters more than all of you together since it is she that I watered, since it is she that I placed under the glass dome, since it is she that I sheltered, since it is she whose caterpillars I killed. Since it is she who is my rose."
"People no longer have the time to understand things. They buy everything ready-made from the shops. There is no shop where friends can be bought."
"When you are my friend you are unique."
The Little Prince, although short and containing some illustrations can be advertised to young readers but conveys complex ideas for an adult audience to consume and enjoy. Exupery examines love, loss, isolation, belonging, friendships, death, language and the need to feel connected. There is a link with the cost of life but this is taken further by indicating that quality relationships can't be purchased. They require time, patience and understanding or "taming." Readers can believe that the prince is a small human or child and he often refers to people older than him not as adults but grown-ups. He is often challenging their thoughts and providing reasons why he dislikes them but by referring to them as grown-ups he draws a connection to the size difference. Are children less opiniated, knowledgeable and incapable of things in life?
A major motif or symbol in The Little Prince is the rose. When the rose blooms, Exupery demonstrates this in the form of a performance, a magical process. Interesting, the prince often refers to the rose as 'her' or 'she' in which the rose isn't just a plant but a girl, his girl, his lover and the greens and reds of the flower are her robes. He does everything for this rose and believes in giving one's whole self in a relationship. The Little Prince often explores the beauty of the simplicities of life and how these can be so often overlooked particularly by adults. Grown-ups are so invested in figures but don't see the authenticity of people or the loveliness of homes. The prince just believes in living in slow motion, connectedness and desires to be loved by all he encounters. This is definitely a read where you will be asking questions about the small but real things in life and considering what truly matters in this world.
Favourite quotes:
"Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is exhausting for children always and forever to be giving explanations."
"And so it was that I made the acquaintance of the little prince."
"So you fell from the sky. Which planet are you from."
"I knew very well that besides the important planets - Earth, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and so on - to which names have been given, there are also hundreds of others, some so small that one has trouble finding them even through the telescope. When an astronomer discovers one of these, he gives it a number instead of a name."
"Grown-ups are like that."
"Grown-ups love figures. When you describe a new friend to them, they never ask you about the important things. They never say 'what's his voice like?' 'What's his favourite games?' 'Does he collect butterflies?' instead they demand: 'How old is he?' 'How many brothers does he have?' 'How much does his father earn?'"
"Only then do they feel they know him. If you say to the grown-ups 'I've seen a lovely house with pink bricks and geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof', they are unable to picture such a house. You must say I saw a house that cost one hundred thousand. Then they say 'how pretty.'
"The grown-ups will treat you like a child."
"To forget a friend is sad."
"Grown-ups don't care for anything except figures."
"He carefully swept out his active volcanoes. They were useful for heating up breakfast in the morning. If they are well swept they burn slowly and steadily without erupting. Here on Earth we are far too small to sweep out volcanoes."
"If someone loves a flower, of which there is only one example of al the millions and millions of stars, that is enough to make him happy when he looks up at the night sky. He says to himself, 'somewhere out there is my flower.'"
"On one star, one planet, this planet, the Earth, there was a little prince in need of consoling. I took him in my arms and cradled him. I told him the flower you love is not in danger... I'll draw you a muzzle for your sheep... I'll draw you a shield to put round your flower."
"It is such a secret place - the land of tears."
"Closeted in her green room, however, this flower took an age preparing herself to be beautiful. She chose her colours with care. She dressed slowly, adjusting her petals one by one. She wanted to appear in the full radiance of her beauty. She was very stylish!"
"The little prince could not contain his admiration 'my you are so beautiful'"
"Would you be so kind as to attend to me."
"You just simply gaze them and breathe them in. I was too young to know how to love her."
"Leave that glass alone. Don't hang about like that."
"Grown-ups are very strange."
"To admire means to admit I am the handsomest, the best-dressed, the richest, the most intelligent person on this planet."
"Kings do not own. They reign over. There is a difference."
"When you find a diamond that belongs to no one it belongs to you. If you find an island that belongs to no one it is yours and if you have an idea you come up with first you patent it."
"I myself own a flower which I water every day and three volcanoes I sweep out each week."
"What is beautiful is useful."
"I have left her all alone on my planet."
"She matters more than all of you together since it is she that I watered, since it is she that I placed under the glass dome, since it is she that I sheltered, since it is she whose caterpillars I killed. Since it is she who is my rose."
"People no longer have the time to understand things. They buy everything ready-made from the shops. There is no shop where friends can be bought."
"When you are my friend you are unique."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews