Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is an outstanding French writer and pilot. The author managed to combine the flight of fantasy and the flight of an aviator in his work and life, and to display in his works the artistic details of the ordinary romance of the sky. A philosopher and humanist, he insisted that writing and flying were the same thing.
Features of creativity
The work of Antoine de Saint-Exupery is associated with biography; most of his books talk about flights, the sky, pilots and airplanes. However, the main theme of any narrative still remains the philosophical problems of the human personality, issues of life and death. The author wanted to understand, comprehend and convey to the audience of readers his vision of “a person when choosing a path in life.”
Exupery's most famous book is The Little Prince. Many call it a fairy tale, and indeed, the writer, with the help of allegories, presents the basic laws of society. “We are responsible for those we have tamed.” In this phrase you can see help, sympathy, support, compassion.
It’s easy to read Exupery’s books, the writer demonstrates the philosophy of action and life, tries to find answers to questions that torment many people: “how to live correctly?”, “what to do?”. Books by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry online:
- "Planet of People".
Brief biography of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The future writer was born in 1900 in Lyon. At the age of four he lost his father and was raised by his mother. He received his first education at the Jesuit school in La Mana, then he studied at a Catholic boarding school in Switzerland, and in 1917 he graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Paris.
An important period in his life was 1921, when Exupery was drafted into the army and sent to pilot courses. After a year of hard training, he received a pilot’s license and moved to Paris, where he became interested in literature. At first, his work did not win laurels. Exupery had to constantly change professions and take on any job.
Luck smiled only in 1925, Exupery became a pilot for Aeropostal, a company delivering mail to northern Africa. A few years later he became the head of the airport of a small town in Africa. In 1929 he was transferred to Buenos Aires.
Returning to Europe, he worked for a short time on postal airlines and tried himself as a test pilot. From the mid-1930s he was engaged in journalism, and in 1935 he visited Moscow as a correspondent. I devoted five interesting essays to this event. As a correspondent, he went to war in Spain and actively fought against the Nazis. In 1944 he went to the Sardinian islands for reconnaissance and did not return.
The details of Exupery's death were unknown. Only in 1998, near Marseille, a fisherman discovered a bracelet that belonged to the writer, and a year later the wreckage of the plane was found.
In one of his letters to his mother, Saint-Exupery admitted: “I hate people who write for fun, looking for effects. You have to have something to say.” He, the romantic of heaven, who did not shy away from earthly joys, who loved, according to his friends, “writing, speaking, singing, playing, getting to the bottom of things, eating, attracting attention to himself, caring for women,” a man of a discerning mind with his own advantages and disadvantages , but who always stood for the defense of universal human values, had “something to say.” And he did it: he wrote the fairy tale “The Little Prince”, about the most important thing in this life, life on planet Earth, increasingly so unkind, but beloved and the only one.
Before you is a truly unique book - a collection of journalism by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, which was compiled by the French publisher Claude Raynal and published in the writer’s homeland more than half a century ago. Some works are published for the first time in Russian, some were published in other publications, but this book is being published in Russia for the first time in its original composition.
The essays, speeches, articles and letters collected here are of true value not only for fans of Saint-Exupéry and allow, in addition to the usual heroic image of the writer-pilot, to see in the author of these texts a journalist, mentor, speaker, soldier, as well as an outstanding person who dedicated searching for the meaning of life, determining the place and role of people in it.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is a writer who has become a “golden classic” of French and world literature, the author of “The Little Prince,” familiar to many since childhood, the creator of the best of the best novels about the war and its voluntary and involuntary heroes and victims. A writer whose books have the amazing ability to remain modern in any era and attract the attention of readers of any age.
"Citadel" is the most original and, perhaps, the most brilliant work of Exupery. A book in which the facets of this writer’s talent sparkled in a new way. A book in which motifs of reasons and military prose, memoirs and literary legends, reflections on the meaning of life and the spiritual quest of the great Frenchman are intricately intertwined.
Saint-Exupéry spent 1927-1929 in Africa, working as the head of the intermediate airfield of Cap Jubi on the southern border of Morocco (this airfield is described in “South Postal”); there he finished his first book, begun several years earlier. It was first published in 1929.
Saint-Exupéry's first story is still imperfect in many ways. In particular, the love line of her plot turned out to be inorganic for the work of this writer; in general, the plot structure of the book rather prevents the free expression of ideas and problems that worried its author. Nevertheless, many important meaningful motives are already heard here - the motive of human connections connecting the narrator with his friend Jacques Bernis, the thought of the order that a person brings into the world through his activities. The intense (at times not yet clear enough) style of the story foreshadows the style of mature philosophical prose of Saint-Exupery.
The central place in this book is occupied by two short stories: “Manon, dancer” - the first completed work of Exupery, unfortunately not published during the author’s lifetime, and “The Aviator” - a short story that became the writer’s first publication, as well as the starting point on the path to creating his eternal creations . These early works, of course, are extremely significant in the work of Saint-Exupery; they fully sense the artistic merit, high skill and depth of thought that readers so value in him.
In addition, the collection includes previously unknown essays by the writer, unpublished chapters and fragments of the novels “Southern Postal” and “Night Flight”, as well as accurately reproduced letters and documents representing unique evidence of the life and history of the creation of his immortal works. The reader will be of great interest in his love letters to the granddaughter of Tsar Alexander II, actress and socialite Natalie Paley, full of piercing lyricism and revelation.
The texts are published for the first time in Russian.
Preface
Manon, dancer
Around the novels “Southern Post Office” and “Night Flight”
This summer I went to see my plane. Pilot. You can believe in people
Letters to Natalie Paley
Before you are the legendary works of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, writer - and pilot. Works in which the writer’s talent serves only as a means and form to express the pilot’s feelings.
The once wise Jean Cocteau called Exupery a “flying soul.” Now you have to plunge into the flight of this soul - and, together with Exupery, “go into the sky”...
“Military Pilot” is a book about defeat and about the people who endured it in the name of future victory. In it, Saint-Exupéry takes the reader back to the initial period of the war, to the days of May 1940, when “the retreat of the French troops was in full swing.” In its form, “Military Pilot” is a report on the events of one day. He talks about the flight of a French reconnaissance plane to the city of Arras, which found itself behind German lines. The book is reminiscent of Saint-Exupery's newspaper reports about events in Spain, but it is written on a different, higher level. Saint-Exupéry wrote “The Military Pilot”, addressing defeated France, and his task was to find out, first of all for himself, and then for everyone who had been defeated, the main problem: what can a person who is in captivity do, where and what should he do? to look for support, from where to draw hope for salvation. Therefore, an integral part of the report about the war includes memories of his childhood, his nanny from Tyrol - Paula, and his years in college.
Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint-Exupéry. Born June 29, 1900 in Lyon, France - died July 31, 1944. French writer, poet and professional pilot.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in the French city of Lyon, descended from an old family of Périgord nobles, and was the third of five children of Viscount Jean de Saint-Exupéry and his wife Marie de Fontcolombes. At the age of four he lost his father. His mother raised little Antoine.
In 1912, at the aviation field in Amberier, Saint-Exupéry took off for the first time in an airplane. The car was piloted by the famous pilot Gabriel Wroblewski.
Exupery entered the School of the Christian Brothers of St. Bartholomew in Lyon (1908), then with his brother Francois he studied at the Jesuit College of Sainte-Croix in Manse - until 1914, after which they continued their studies in Friborg (Switzerland) at the Marist College, preparing to enter the Ecole Naval (he took a preparatory course at the Naval Lyceum Saint-Louis in Paris), but did not pass the competition. In 1919, he enrolled as a volunteer student at the Academy of Fine Arts in the architecture department.
The turning point in his fate was 1921 - then he was drafted into the army in France. Having interrupted the deferment he received upon entering a higher educational institution, Antoine enrolled in the 2nd Fighter Aviation Regiment in Strasbourg. At first he is assigned to a work team at repair shops, but soon he manages to pass the exam to become a civilian pilot. He is transferred to Morocco, where he receives a military pilot's license, and then is sent to Istres for improvement. In 1922, Antoine completed the course for reserve officers in Aurora and became a junior lieutenant. In October he was assigned to the 34th Aviation Regiment at Bourges near Paris. In January 1923, he suffered his first plane crash and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He will be discharged in March. Exupery moved to Paris, where he devoted himself to writing. However, at first he was not successful in this field and was forced to take on any job: he sold cars, he was a salesman in a bookstore.
Only in 1926 did Exupery find his calling - he became a pilot for the Aeropostal company, which delivered mail to the northern coast of Africa. In the spring, he begins work transporting mail on the line Toulouse - Casablanca, then Casablanca - Dakar. On October 19, 1926, he was appointed head of the Cap Jubi intermediate station (city of Villa Bens), on the very edge of the Sahara.
Here he writes his first work - “Southern Postal”.
In March 1929, Saint-Exupery returned to France, where he entered the highest aviation courses of the navy in Brest. Soon, Gallimard's publishing house published the novel "South Postal", and Exupery left for South America as the technical director of Aeropost - Argentina, a branch of the Aeropostal company. In 1930, Saint-Exupéry was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor for his contribution to the development of civil aviation. In June, he personally participated in the search for his friend the pilot Guillaume, who suffered an accident while flying over the Andes. In the same year, Saint-Exupery wrote “Night Flight” and met his future wife Consuelo from El Salvador.
In 1930, Saint-Exupéry returned to France and received a three-month vacation. In April, he married Consuelo Sunsin (April 16, 1901 - May 28, 1979), but the couple, as a rule, lived separately. On March 13, 1931, the Aeropostal company was declared bankrupt. Saint-Exupéry returned to work as a pilot for the France-South America postal line and served the Casablanca-Port-Etienne-Dakar section. In October 1931, Night Flight was published, and the writer was awarded the Femina literary prize. He takes leave again and moves to Paris.
In February 1932, Exupery began working again for the Latecoera airline and flew as a co-pilot on a seaplane serving the Marseille-Algeria line. Didier Dora, a former Aeropostal pilot, soon got him a job as a test pilot, and Saint-Exupéry almost died while testing a new seaplane in the Bay of Saint-Raphael. The seaplane capsized, and he barely managed to get out of the cabin of the sinking car.
In 1934, Exupery went to work for the Air France airline (formerly Aeropostal), as a representative of the company, traveling to Africa, Indochina and other countries.
In April 1935, as a correspondent for the Paris-Soir newspaper, Saint-Exupéry visited the USSR and described this visit in five essays. The essay “Crime and Punishment in the Face of Soviet Justice” became one of the first works of Western writers in which an attempt was made to comprehend Stalinism. On May 3, 1935, he met with, which was recorded in E. S. Bulgakov’s diary.
Soon, Saint-Exupéry became the owner of his own aircraft, the C.630 Simun, and on December 29, 1935, he attempted to set a record on the Paris-Saigon flight, but suffered an accident in the Libyan desert, again barely escaping death. On January 1, he and the mechanic Prevost, dying of thirst, were rescued by Bedouins.
In August 1936, according to an agreement with the newspaper Entransijan, he went to Spain, where there was a civil war, and published a number of reports in the newspaper.
In January 1938, Exupery traveled aboard the Ile de France to New York. Here he proceeds to work on the book “Planet of People”. On February 15, he begins the flight from New York to Tierra del Fuego, but suffers a serious accident in Guatemala, after which he recovers for a long time, first in New York and then in France.
On September 4, 1939, the day after France declared war on Germany, Saint-Exupéry was mobilized at the Toulouse-Montaudran military airfield and on November 3 transferred to the 2/33 long-range reconnaissance air unit, which is based in Orconte (Champagne province). This was his response to his friends’ persuasion to abandon the risky career of a military pilot. Many tried to convince Saint-Exupéry that he would bring much more benefit to the country as a writer and journalist, that thousands of pilots could be trained and that he should not risk his life. But Saint-Exupery achieved appointment to a combat unit. In one of his letters in November 1939, he writes: “I am obliged to participate in this war. Everything I love is at risk. In Provence, when the forest burns, everyone who cares grabs buckets and shovels. I want to fight, love and my inner religion force me to do this. I can’t stand by and watch this calmly.”.
Saint-Exupéry made several combat missions on a Block-174 aircraft, performing aerial photographic reconnaissance missions, and was nominated for the Croix de Guerre award. In June 1941, after the defeat of France, he moved to his sister in the unoccupied part of the country, and later went to the United States. He lived in New York, where, among other things, he wrote his most famous book, “The Little Prince” (1942, published 1943). In 1943, he joined the Air Force of “Fighting France” and with great difficulty achieved his enrollment in a combat unit. He had to master piloting the new high-speed Lightning P-38 aircraft.
“I have a funny craft for my age. The next one in age is six years younger than me. But, of course, I prefer my current life - breakfast at six in the morning, a dining room, a tent or a whitewashed room, flying at an altitude of ten thousand meters in a world forbidden to humans - to unbearable Algerian idleness... ... I chose work for maximum wear and tear and, because necessary I always push myself to the end, I won’t back down anymore. I just wish this vile war would end before I fade away like a candle in a stream of oxygen. I have something to do after it.”(from a letter to Jean Pelissier, July 9-10, 1944).
On July 31, 1944, Saint-Exupery set off from Borgo airfield on the island of Corsica on a reconnaissance flight and did not return.
For a long time nothing was known about his death. And only in 1998, in the sea near Marseille, a fisherman discovered a bracelet.
There were several inscriptions on it: “Antoine”, “Consuelo” (that was the name of the pilot’s wife) and “c/o Reynal & Hitchcock, 386 4th Ave. NYC USA." This was the address of the publishing house where Saint-Exupery's books were published. In May 2000, diver Luc Vanrel said that at a depth of 70 meters he discovered the wreckage of an airplane that may have belonged to Saint-Exupéry. The remains of the plane were scattered over a strip one kilometer long and 400 meters wide. Almost immediately, the French government banned any searches in the area. Permission was received only in the fall of 2003. Experts recovered fragments of the plane. One of them turned out to be part of the pilot's cabin; the serial number of the aircraft was preserved: 2734-L. Using American military archives, scientists compared all the numbers of aircraft that disappeared during this period. Thus, it turned out that the onboard serial number 2734-L corresponds to the aircraft, which in the US Air Force was listed under the number 42-68223, that is, the Lockheed P-38 Lightning aircraft, modification F-5B-1-LO (long-range photo reconnaissance aircraft), which was managed by Exupery.
Luftwaffe logs contain no records of aircraft shot down in this area on July 31, 1944, and the wreckage itself does not show obvious signs of shelling. This gave rise to many theories about the crash, including versions about a technical malfunction and the suicide of the pilot.
According to press publications from March 2008, the German Luftwaffe veteran 86-year-old Horst Rippert, a pilot of the Jagdgruppe 200 squadron, stated that it was he who shot down the plane of Antoine de Saint-Exupery in his Messerschmitt Me-109 fighter. According to his statements, he did not know who was at the controls of the enemy plane: “I did not see the pilot, only later did I find out that it was Saint-Exupery.”
The fact that Saint-Exupery was the pilot of the downed plane became known to the Germans on the same days from radio interceptions of negotiations at French airfields carried out by German troops. The absence of corresponding entries in the Luftwaffe logs is due to the fact that, apart from Horst Rippert, there were no other witnesses to the air battle, and this plane was not officially counted as shot down.
Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint-Exupéry (French: Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint-Exupéry) was born on June 29, 1900 in Lyon (France) into an aristocratic family. He was the third child of Count Jean de Saint-Exupéry.
His father died when Antoine was four years old, and his mother raised the boy. He spent his childhood on the Saint-Maurice estate near Lyon, which belonged to his grandmother.
In 1909-1914, Antoine and his younger brother Francois studied at the Jesuit College of Le Mans, then at a private educational institution in Switzerland.
Having received a bachelor's degree in college, Antoine studied for several years at the Academy of Arts in the architectural department, then entered the aviation troops as a private. In 1923 he was given a pilot's license.
In 1926, he was accepted into the service of the General Company of Aviation Enterprises, owned by the famous designer Latekoer. In the same year, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s first story, “The Pilot,” appeared in print.
Saint-Exupery flew on the postal lines Toulouse - Casablanca, Casablanca - Dakar, then became the head of the airfield at Fort Cap Jubie in Morocco (part of this territory belonged to the French) - on the border of the Sahara.
In 1929, he returned to France for six months and signed an agreement with book publisher Gaston Guillimard to publish seven novels; in the same year, the novel “Southern Postal” was published. In September 1929, Saint-Exupéry was appointed director of the Buenos Aires branch of the French airline Aeropostal Argentina.
In 1930 he was made a Knight of the Order of the Legion of Honor of France, and at the end of 1931 he became a laureate of the prestigious literary prize "Femina" for the novel "Night Flight" (1931).
In 1933-1934, he was a test pilot, made a number of long-distance flights, suffered accidents, and was seriously wounded several times.
In 1934, he submitted the first application for the invention of a new aircraft landing system (in total he had 10 inventions at the level of scientific and technical achievements of his time).
In December 1935, during a long flight from Paris to Saigon, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's plane crashed in the Libyan desert; he miraculously survived.
From the mid-1930s, he worked as a journalist: in April 1935, as a special correspondent for the Paris-Soir newspaper, he visited Moscow and described this visit in several essays; in 1936, as a front-line correspondent, he wrote a series of military reports from Spain, where the civil war was going on.
In 1939, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was promoted to officer of the French Legion of Honor. In February, his book “Planet of People” (in Russian translation - “Land of People”; American title - “Wind, Sand and Stars”), which is a collection of autobiographical essays, was published. The book was awarded the French Academy Prize and the National Prize of the Year in the USA.
When World War II began, Captain Saint-Exupéry was conscripted into the army, but was found fit only for ground service. Using all his connections, Saint-Exupéry achieved an appointment to an aviation reconnaissance group.
In May 1940, on a Block 174 aircraft, he made a reconnaissance flight over Arras, for which he was awarded the Military Cross for Military Merit.
After the occupation of France by Nazi troops in 1940, he emigrated to the United States.
In February 1942, his book “Military Pilot” was published in the USA and was a great success, after which Saint-Exupéry at the end of spring received an order from the publishing house Reynal-Hitchhok to write a fairy tale for children. He signed a contract and began work on the philosophical and lyrical fairy tale “The Little Prince” with the author’s illustrations. In April 1943, "The Little Prince" was published in the USA, and in the same year the story "Letter to a Hostage" was published. Then Saint-Exupéry worked on the story "The Citadel" (not finished, published in 1948).
In 1943, Saint-Exupery left America for Algeria, where he underwent treatment, from where he returned to his air group based in Morocco in the summer. After great difficulty in obtaining permission to fly, thanks to the support of influential figures in the French resistance, Saint-Exupéry was allowed to fly five reconnaissance flights to take aerial photographs of enemy communications and troops in the area of his native Provence.
On the morning of July 31, 1944, Saint-Exupéry set off on a reconnaissance flight from Borgo airfield on the island of Corsica in a Lightning P-38 aircraft equipped with a camera and unarmed. His task on that flight was to collect intelligence in preparation for the landing operation in the south of France, occupied by the Nazi invaders. The plane did not return to base and its pilot was declared missing.
The search for the remains of the plane was carried out for many years, only in 1998, Marseille fisherman Jean-Claude Bianco accidentally discovered a silver bracelet near Marseille with the name of the writer and his wife Consuelo.
In May 2000, professional diver Luc Vanrel told authorities that he had discovered the remains of the plane on which Saint-Exupéry made his last flight at a depth of 70 meters. From November 2003 to January 2004, a special expedition recovered the remains of the plane from the bottom; on one of the parts they were able to find the marking “2374 L”, which corresponded to Saint-Exupéry’s plane.
In March 2008, former Luftwaffe pilot Horst Rippert, 88, said he was the one who shot down the plane. Rippert's statements are confirmed by some information from other sources, but at the same time, no records were found in the logs of the German Air Force about the plane shot down that day in the area where Saint-Exupéry disappeared; the found wreckage of his plane did not have obvious traces of shelling.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery was married to the widow of the Argentine journalist Consuelo Songqing (1901-1979). After the writer's disappearance, she lived in New York, then moved to France, where she was known as a sculptor and painter. She devoted a lot of time to perpetuating the memory of Saint-Exupéry.
The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources
😉 Hello, my dear readers! Some quotes by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry have become popular. For example, “You are forever responsible for everyone you tamed.” Friends, is there anyone here who has not read The Little Prince? I think not!
This is a famous philosophical tale about goodness, beauty and truth. “There is such a firm rule. Get up in the morning, wash your face, put yourself in order - and immediately put your planet in order.”
All fairy tale heroes have their prototypes. The image of the prince himself is deeply autobiographical. The rose that the Little Prince loves and protects is his beautiful but capricious wife, the Latina Consuelo. And Lis is Exupery’s good friend Sylvia Reinhardt, who helped him in difficult times.
I read The Little Prince when I was twelve. I remember my childhood surprise that the author of the “prince” turned out to be a pilot. The writer-pilot Exupery can be attributed to an almost extinct species of people - romantics. You will understand this when you read his judgments in quotes.
Biography of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944) was a French writer and professional pilot. His full name is surprising. It sounds like this: Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint-Exupéry. Zodiac sign - Cancer.
Childhood
Antoine was the third of five children in the family of a provincial nobleman (count). At the age of four, Tony (as he was called) lost his father. His mother raised little Antoine. It was she who instilled in him a love of literature, fairy tales and art and was his greatest friend. He loved her more than anyone in the world.
🙂 Read fairy tales to your children, gentlemen! Every day. This is very important!
Tony is second from right
Youth
Exupery graduated from the Jesuit school in Montreux and studied at a Catholic boarding school in Switzerland. In 1917 he entered the Faculty of Architecture at the Paris School of Fine Arts.
The turning point in his fate was 1921 - he was drafted into the army and enrolled in pilot courses. Soon Exupery received a pilot's license and moved, where he turned to writing. The young writer was forced to take on any job: he sold cars, he was a salesman in a bookstore.
With his wife Consuelo
Vocation
Only in 1925 did Exupéry find his calling - he became a pilot for the Aeropostal company, which delivered mail to the northern coast of Africa. Two years later he was appointed head of the airport at Cap Jubi, on the very edge of the Sahara. And there he finally found that inner peace that filled his later books.
In 1929, Exupery headed the branch of his airline in Buenos Aires. In 1931 he returned to Europe, again flew on postal lines, and was also a test pilot. Since the mid-1930s. He also acted as a journalist.
He also went to war in Spain as a correspondent. He fought the Nazis from the early days of World War II. On July 31, 1944, he set off from an airfield on the island of Sardinia on a reconnaissance flight - and did not return.
Bracelet
For several decades nothing was known about his death. And only in 1998, in the sea nearby, a fisherman discovered a bracelet. There were several inscriptions on it: “Antoine”, “Consuelo” (that was the name of the pilot’s wife) and the address of the publishing house where Antoine’s books were published.
Exupery bracelet
In May 2000, diver Luc Vanrel discovered the wreckage of an airplane at a depth of 70 meters, possibly belonging to Saint-Exupéry. During his lifetime, Exupery was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor.
The literary heritage of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- "Southern Post Office" (1929);
- "Night Flight" (1931);
- "Planet of Men" (1938);
- "Military Pilot" (1942);
- "The Little Prince" (1943);
- "Citadel" (1948).
Read amazing quotes by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry without rushing. Think about it. The birth of each quote was preceded by personal experiences, life experiences and the attitude of the author himself to the world.
Each person sees the world differently. Antoine saw the world this way. Read quotes by Antoine de Saint-Exupery about the meaning of life, loneliness, freedom and responsibility and you will learn about the rich inner world of Exupery.
Antoine knew the real value of water when he was dying of thirst in the Libyan desert, where his plane crashed. He and the mechanic Prevost were doomed to death. Fortunately they were saved by the Bedouins. Imagine yourself in the desert, where there will not be a sip of water for four whole days!
God, what a shame that the life of this brilliant man was cut short at the age of 44! It is a tragedy when the world loses talented people.
Immortal quotes from the writer
Quotes from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry about the meaning of life, people and love:
- “By working only for material benefits, we are building a prison for ourselves. And we lock ourselves in alone, and all our riches are dust and ashes, they are powerless to give us something worth living for.”
- “Here is my secret, it is very simple: only the heart is vigilant. You can’t see the most important things with your eyes.”
- “You are forever responsible for everyone you have tamed.”
- “There is such a firm rule: get up in the morning, put yourself in order - and immediately put your planet in order.”
- “To live means to be born slowly.”
- “Life manifests itself not in states, but in actions.”
- “Don’t check on your friends and loved ones. They still won’t pass the test.”
- “Never lose patience - this is the last key that unlocks the doors.”
- “If a person betrayed someone because of you, you should not associate your life with him; sooner or later he will betray you because of someone.”
- “Love means looking not at each other, but looking together in the same direction.”
- “Why should we hate each other? We are all together, carried away by the same planet, we are the crew of one ship.”
- “The city has no time for people. There are no people, there are functions: the postman, the seller, the neighbor who is in the way. You value a person in the desert.”
These quotes make a person think about the meaning of life, but nowadays there are few such readers. Everyone lives in some kind of daily bustle...
Gentlemen, write reviews in the comments on the topic “Quotations by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.” 🙂 Share the information with your friends on social networks. Thank you!
Antoine de Saint-Exupry (French Antoine de Saint-Exupry) (June 29, 1900, Lyon, France - July 31, 1944) - French writer and professional pilot.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in the French city of Lyon, in the family of a provincial nobleman (count). At the age of four he lost his father. His mother raised little Antoine. Exupery graduated from the Jesuit school in Montreux, studied at a Catholic boarding school in Switzerland, and in 1917 entered the Faculty of Architecture at the Paris School of Fine Arts.
The turning point in his fate was 1921 - then he was drafted into the army and enrolled in pilot courses. A year later, Exupery received a pilot's license and moved to Paris, where he turned to writing. However, at first he did not win any laurels in this field and was forced to take on any job: he sold cars, he was a salesman in a bookstore.
Only in 1925 did Exupéry find his calling - he became a pilot for the Aeropostal company, which delivered mail to the northern coast of Africa. Two years later, he was appointed head of the airport in Cap Jubi, on the very edge of the Sahara, and there he finally found the inner peace that his later books are filled with.
In 1929, Exupery headed the branch of his airline in Buenos Aires; in 1931 he returned to Europe, again flew on postal lines, was also a test pilot, and from the mid-1930s. He also acted as a journalist, in particular, in 1935 he visited Moscow as a correspondent and described this visit in five interesting essays. He also went to war in Spain as a correspondent. Saint-Exupéry fought the Nazis from the first days of World War II, and on July 31, 1944, he set off from an airfield on the island of Sardinia on a reconnaissance flight - and did not return.
For a long time nothing was known about his death. And only in 1998, in the sea near Marseille, a fisherman discovered a bracelet. There were several inscriptions on it: “Antoine”, “Consuelo” (that was the name of the pilot’s wife) and “c/o Reynal & Hitchcock, 386 4th Ave. NYC USA." This was the address of the publishing house where Saint-Exupery's books were published. In May 2000, diver Luc Vanrel said that at a depth of 70 meters he discovered the wreckage of an airplane that may have belonged to Saint-Exupéry. The remains of the plane were scattered over a strip one kilometer long and 400 meters wide. Almost immediately, the French government banned any searches in the area. Permission was received only in the fall of 2003. Experts recovered fragments of the plane. One of them turned out to be part of the pilot's cabin; the serial number of the aircraft was preserved: 2734-L. Using American military archives, scientists compared all the numbers of aircraft that disappeared during this period. Thus, it turned out that the onboard serial number 2734-L corresponds to the aircraft, which in the US Air Force was listed under the number 42-68223, that is, the Lockheed P-38 Lightning aircraft, a modification of the F-4 (long-range photographic reconnaissance aircraft), which was flown by Exupery. The German Air Force logs contain no records of aircraft shot down in this area on July 31, 1944, and the wreckage itself shows no obvious signs of shelling. This gave rise to many versions of the crash, including versions of a technical malfunction and suicide of the pilot. Literary awards: 1930 - Femina - for the novel “Night Flight”; 1939 - Grand Prix du Roman of the French Academy - “Wind, Sand and Stars”; 1939 - US National Book Award - "Wind, Sand and Stars." Military awards. In 1939 he was awarded the Military Cross of the French Republic. Names in honor. Aroport Lyon-Saint-Exupry in Lyon; Asteroid 2578 Saint-Exupry, discovered by astronomer Tatyana Smirnova (discovered on November 2, 1975 under the number “B612”);
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born into the family of a count in Lyon, a French city, on June 29, 1900. When the boy was four years old, his father died, and his mother raised his son. He graduated from school, boarding school, and in 1917 he went to study to become an architect.
In 1921 he was drafted into the army, and due to the state of his health he was sent to the pilots. After a year of service, he becomes a pilot and then moves to Paris, where he begins to engage in creativity. In 1925, Antoine got a job as a pilot at the Aeropostal postal company. After two years of work, the young pilot is appointed to the position of airport manager in Sahara, Africa.
In 1929 he was transferred to Buenos Aires, where he headed a new branch of the airline; in 1931 he returned back to Europe where he again began transporting mail by plane. In parallel with transportation, Antoine was engaged in journalism in 1930, and in 1935, he went to Moscow for his work as a correspondent, a trip where he described in five of his interesting essays. Exupery also goes to war as a journalist in Spain. He took part in the Second World War from its first days, and in 1944 he made a secret reconnaissance flight from the island of Sardinia and did not return.
About forty years later, the pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was considered missing, and in 1998 his bracelet was found at sea, not far from Marseille, on which the engraving of his data was recognized: the name of his wife and the address of the publishing house where Antoine published his books. In May 2000, the wreckage of an aircraft was found at great depths; according to assumptions, this should have been the plane on which Antoine made his reconnaissance flight in 1941. The crash site was immediately closed by the government, and only in 2003 were fragments of the plane recovered.
After checking the entries in the logs of the German Air Force at the time of July 31, 1944, the military came to the conclusion that the P-38 Lighting crashed due to a technical malfunction or pilot error, since the remains of the hull were without obvious damage from anti-aircraft guns, and in the magazines at that time did not indicate anything.
Over the years of his life, the author was awarded many literary prizes for his novels: the Femina Prize in 1930, the Grand Prix du Roman in 1939, and many others. He was also awarded the Military Cross of the French Republic in 1939.