2012.03.28

"But if you tame me, it'll be as if the sun came to shine on my life.
I shall know the sound of a step that'll be different from all the others.
Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground.
Yours will call me, like music out of my burrow.

...

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've not much time.
I've 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's no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship,
and so men have no friends any more.
If you want a friend, tame me…"

"What must I do, to tame you? asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox.
First you'll sit down at a little distance from me – like that – in the grass.
I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing.
Words are the source of misunderstandings.
But you'll sit a little closer to me, every day…"

...

–the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she's 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 for her that I've killed the caterpillars
(except the two or three we saved to become butterflies);
because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled,
or boasted, or even 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's 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 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.

....