It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme joys.
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All men have the stars, but they do not mean the same things for different people. For some they are guides, for others, no more than little lights in the sky. But all these are silent. You--you alone have the stars as no one else has them
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A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
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Only he can understand what a farm is, what a country is, who shall have sacrificed part of himself to his farm or country, fought to save it, struggled to make it beautiful. Only then will the love of farm or country fill his heart.
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One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one allows himself to be tamed.
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Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.
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A civilization is a heritage of beliefs, customs, and knowledge slowly accumulated in the course of centuries, elements difficult at times to justify by logic, but justifying themselves as paths when they lead somewhere, since they open up for man his inner distance.
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He who is different from me does not impoverish me - he enriches me. Our unity is constituted in something higher than ourselves - in Man... For no man seeks to hear his own echo, or to find his reflection in the glass.
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Grown ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
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There is a cheap literature that speaks to us of the need of escape. It is true that when we travel we are in search of distance. But distance is not to be found. It melts away. And escape has never led anywhere. The moment a man finds that he must play the races, go the Arctic, or make war in order to feel himself alive, that man has begin to spin the strands that bind him to other men and to the world. But what wretched strands! A civilization that is really strong fills man to the brim, though he never stir. What are we worth when motionless, is the question.
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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.
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The moral? Don't hesitate to throw away superannuated features when you can do it without loss of effectiveness. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (who was an aviator and aircraft designer when he wasn't being the author of classic children's books) said:
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the vagabond began To sketch a face that well might buy the soul of any man....
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Familiarity is the root of the closest friendships, as well as the interests hatreds.
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Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
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If someone wants a sheep, then that means that he exists.
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A chief is a man who assumes responsibility. He says 'I was beaten,' he does not say 'My men were beaten'.
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He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man.
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One man may hit the mark, another blunder; but heed not these distinctions. Only from the alliance of the one, working with and through the other, are great things born.
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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.
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Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward in the same direction.
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He who would travel happily must travel light.
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Love has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
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A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind.
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When you give yourself, you receive more than you give.
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The art of drawing conclusions from experiments and observations consists in evaluating probabilities and in estimating whether they are sufficiently great or numerous enough to constitute proofs. This kind of calculation is more complicated and more difficult than it is commonly thought to be. . .
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One man may hit the mark, another blunder but heed not these distinctions. Only from the alliance of the one, working with and through the other, are great things born.
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Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
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Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
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A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them.
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