"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye"
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."
It was then that the fox appeared.
"Good morning," said the fox.
"Good morning," the little prince responded
politely, although when he turned around he
saw nothing.
"I am right here," the voice said, "under the
apple tree."
"Who are you?" asked the little prince, and
added, "You are very pretty to look at."
"I am a fox," said the fox.
"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."
"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 in all the
world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world..."
"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower... I think that she
has tamed me..."
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 to understand."
"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.
And then he added:
"Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the
world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."
The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.
"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you,
and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox
like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is
unique in all the world."
And the roses were very much embarrassed.
"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure,
an ordinary passerby 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 for her 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 ever
sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose."
And he went back to meet the fox.
"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 is essential 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.
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."
"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--" said the little prince, 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. You are responsible for your rose..."
"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
The Little Prince
Written and illustrated by Antoine de Saint Exupéry
