It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry The Little Prince, ch. 21 (1943) Translated by Richard Howard
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When and why it was written
- When
- Published in 1943, while Saint-Exupéry was in exile in New York.
- Why
- The fox says it to the prince as they part, having taught him what taming means.
What it means
The fox has spent the chapter demonstrating rather than asserting it. Being tamed took time, ritual and repeated presence, and produced an attachment invisible from outside.
What the eye misses is not something mystical. It is the history between two particular parties, which never shows up in an inventory of either.
Our reading of the passage cited above, not a quotation from a commentary.
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The Little Prince, 1943
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