My Favorite Passage in “The Little Prince”
It spans only a single chapter, yet it speaks for the entire book.
Upon visiting earth, the little prince meets a fox.
He asks for the beautiful animal to come play with him, lonely as he is on this strange new planet far from his home. The fox says that he cannot, for he has not yet been tamed by the little boy. Confused by the word, the prince asks what tamed means.
‘It’s something too readily forgotten,’ said the fox. ‘It means “creating a bond”.’
‘Creating a bond?’
‘That’s right,’ said the fox. ‘To me, you’re just a little boy exactly like a hundred thousand other boys. I don’t need you, and you don’t need me. To you, I’m a fox who’s exactly like a hundred thousand other foxes. But, if you tame me, we will need each other. To me, you’ll be absolutely unique, and to you, I’ll be absolutely unique.’
The prince ponders this. On his home planet, there is a rose, whom he has carefully watered and pruned. He wonders if she might have tamed him — that to him, she is absolutely unique and unlike a hundred thousand other roses.
The fox laments how boring his life is without such a bond. To him, the wheat fields beyond hold no meaning — and neither do the men who hunt him. If he were tamed by the golden-haired prince, he would find meaning and beauty in the yellow wheat fields — and he would know of a human who would make him happy and not afraid.
‘The golden wheat will remind me of you. And the sound of the wind rustling the wheat will make me happy.’
The prince is unconvinced, claiming that he has ‘friends to find and lots of things to understand.’
But the fox argues: You can only understand the things you tame. You cannot truly know something without having spent the time and effort necessary to understand it. Without a bond, there is no closeness — and without that, there cannot be any deeper understanding.
Seeing this, the prince asks him what he must do.
The fox instructs him to be patient. It takes time to create a bond, after all. So, the prince does as he says and shows up day after day on the same hour to tame the animal and make him his friend.
Soon after this, the boy says that he must leave to continue on his journey.
‘Oh!’ said the fox. ‘I’m going to cry.’
‘It’s your own fault,’ said the little prince. ‘I didn’t mean to cause you any sorrow, but you wanted me to tame you.’
‘That’s right,’ said the fox.
‘But you’re going to cry!’ said the little prince.
‘That’s right,’ said the fox.
‘So you’ve gained nothing!’
‘I have gained something — the color of the wheat.’
He asks for the prince to meet him one last time, to part him with his wisdom.
But first, he says, the little prince must visit the rose garden nearby.
Here, he sees hundreds of roses identical to his own back home. But how ordinary they are, says the prince to them. And how absolutely unique his own rose is because of their time spent together.
He returns to the fox, who shares with him a secret.
‘You only see clearly with your heart. The most important things are invisible to the eyes.’
The prince repeats his words, and he continues:
‘It’s the time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important.’
Again, the prince understands. The fox says his final words:
‘You are responsible for ever for those you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose.’
It is upon these words that the prince learns his greatest lesson.
On his journey, he has encountered numerous people who live lives without such bonds. The businessman, who keeps buying stars to buy even more stars; the geographer, who claims knowledge of the world despite never having left his desk to explore it; and the adults aboard the train who have no knowledge of where they are headed.
These people hold no meaningful bonds to explain their actions.
The businessman has no understanding of the stars — only ownership. The geographer has no understanding of the world around him — only accounts. And the travelers have no understanding of where they want to be — no bond tethering them to an inner mission in life.
But the prince spends his time creating bonds. And therefore, he finds meaning in the stars, the world, and his own destination. He finds meaning in his life.
Because what matters most is not materialistic or superficial. Those are things you can see with your eyes. It is the dreams, the motives, the values, and the connections you carry that mark something as important.
What truly matters is invisible to the eyes.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry baked many philosophical lessons into The Little Prince. Having spent time and effort to understand the book, I have come to tame it, and this lesson remains my favorite.
