The Little Prince is my favorite book. For a "children's book," it's able to cut through to the important things in life. One of the bigger themes is the relationship between the Little Prince and the one flower on his small planet.
And he confided further, "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."
As he travels the universe, he discovers a garden of roses:
She would be very annoyed, he said to himself, if she saw this.. She would cough terribly and pretend to be dying, to avoid being laughed at. And I'd have to pretend to be nursing her; otherwise, she'd really let herself die in order to humiliate me.
And then he said to himself, I thought I was rich because I had just one flower, and all I own is an ordinary rose. That and my three volcanoes, which come up to my knee, one of which may be permanently extinct. It doesn't make me much of a prince... And he lay down in the grass and wept.
But he discovers what makes his rose so important when a fox befriends him:
The Little Prince went to look at the roses again.
"You're not at all my like my rose. You're nothing at all yet," he told them. "No one has tamed you and you haven't tamed anyone."
And the roses were humbled.
"You're lovely, but you're empty," he went on. "One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she's teh one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass. Sice she's the one I sheltered behind a screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three for butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to whhen she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose."
This leads to one of the most important lessons in the book (in my opinion, at least):
"Good-bye," said the fox. "Here is my secret. It's quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes."
"Anything essential is invisible to th eyes," the little prince repeated, in order to remember.
"It's the time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important."
"It's teh time I spent on my rose...," the little prince repeated, in order to remember.
"People have forgotten this truth," the fox said. "But you mustn't forget it. You become responsible forever for what you've tamed. You're responsible for your rose..."
"I"m responsible for my rose... ," the little prince repeated, in order to remember.
If you haven't read this book, just head over to the local Barnes and give it a read. It truly is an amazing book.
