Be ready to change your goals, but never your values.

It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance.

Compassion is of little value if it just remains an idea. It must motivate how we respond to others and be reflected in all our thoughts and actions.

When we are motivated by compassion and wisdom, the results of our actions benefit everyone, not just our individual selves or some immediate convenience. When we are able to recognize and forgive ignorant actions of the past, we gain strength to constructively solve the problems of the present.

“Happiness” means mainly a sense of deep satisfaction. The object of life or our goal, then, is satisfaction.

One great question underlies our experience, whether we think about it or not: what is the purpose of life?… From the moment of birth every human being wants happiness and does not want suffering. Neither social conditioning nor education nor ideology affects this. From the very core of our being, we simply desire contentment… Therefore, it is important to discover what will bring about the greatest degree of happiness.

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.

True happiness comes from having a sense of inner peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved by cultivating altruism, love and compassion, and by eliminating anger, selfishness and greed.

The wiser course is to think of others when pursuing our own happiness.

A good motivation and honesty bring self-confidence, which attracts the trust and respect of others. Therefore the real source of blessings is in our own mind.

A good motivation and honesty bring self-confidence, which attracts the trust and respect of others. Therefore the real source of blessings is in our own mind.

When you care for others, you manifest an inner strength despite any difficulties you face. Your own problems will seem less significant and bothersome to you. Reaching beyond your own problems and taking care of others, you gain confidence, courage and a greater sense of calm.

Through violence, you may ‘solve’ one problem, but you sow the seeds for another.

Pain can change you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad change. Take that pain and turn it into wisdom.

When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.

The basis of moral principles is to have a real concern for the well-being of others and an appreciation of the oneness of humanity. Whether science or religion is constructive or destructive depends on our motivation and whether we are guided by moral principles.

"I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin."

"Let a man in a garret but burn with enough intensity and he will set fire to the world"

"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures --in this century as in others our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together."

"The injustice of defeat lies in the fact that its most innocent victims are made to look like heartless accomplices. It is impossible to see behind defeat, the sacrifices, the austere performance of duty, the self-discipline and the vigilance that are there -- those things the god of battle does not take account of."

"Commonly, people believe that defeat is characterized by a general bustle and a feverish rush. Bustle and rush are the signs of victory, not of defeat. Victory is a thing of action. It is a house in the act of being built. Every participant in victory sweats and puffs, carrying the stones for the building of the house. But defeat is a thing of weariness, of incoherence, of boredom. And above all of futility."

"What was my body to me? A kind of flunkey in my service. Let but my anger wax hot, my love grow exalted, my hatred collect in me, and that boasted solidarity between me and my body was gone."

"What was my body to me? A kind of flunkey in my service. Let but my anger wax hot, my love grow exalted, my hatred collect in me, and that boasted solidarity between me and my body was gone."

"You are beautiful, but you are empty. 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."

"Charity never humiliated him who profited from it, nor ever bound him by the chains of gratitude, since it was not to him but to God that the gift was made."

"A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind."

"We say nothing essential about the cathedral when we speak of its stones. We say nothing essential about Man when we seek to define him by the qualities of men."

"When you give yourself, you receive more than you give."

"I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind."

"How could there be any question of acquiring or possessing, when the one thing needful for a man is to become -- to be at last, and to die in the fullness of his being."

"It is such a secret place, the land of tears."

"He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man."

"The notion of looking on at life has always been hateful to me. What am I if I am not a participant? In order to be, I must participate."

"You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose."

"The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves, but in our attitude towards them."

"Once men are caught up in an event, they cease to be afraid. Only the unknown frightens men."

"To be a man is to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world."

"Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

"Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness."

“I remembered the fox. One runs the risk of crying a bit if one allows oneself to be tamed.” 

“I remembered the fox. One runs the risk of crying a bit if one allows oneself to be tamed.” 

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.” 

“In those days, I didn't understand anything. I should have judged her according to her actions, not her words. She perfumed my planet and lit up my life. I should never have run away! I ought to have realized the tenderness underlying her silly pretensions. Flowers are so contradictory! But I was too young to know how to love her.” 

“In those days, I didn't understand anything. I should have judged her according to her actions, not her words. She perfumed my planet and lit up my life. I should never have run away! I ought to have realized the tenderness underlying her silly pretensions. Flowers are so contradictory! But I was too young to know how to love her.” 

“I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime.” 

“I did not know how to reach him, how to catch up with him... The land of tears is so mysterious.” 

“I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn’t much improved my opinion of them.” 

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” 

“The proof that the little prince existed is that he was charming, that he laughed, and that he was looking for a sheep. If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists.”