Are wars... anything but the means whereby a nation's problems are set, where creation is stimulated - there you have adventure. But there is no adventure in heads-or-tails, in betting that the toss will come out of life or death. War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus.
Interpretation
This quote criticizes the romanticization of war, comparing it to a disease rather than an adventure. It highlights the serious consequences and suffering that war brings.
Antoine De Saint-Exupery reflects on the nature of war, suggesting that it is often misconceived as an adventurous endeavor. Instead, he likens it to a debilitating disease, such as typhus, emphasizing that wars merely serve as a means to address deeper national issues while causing immense suffering and destruction, challenging the notion that there is any true excitement or glory in conflict.
In practice
In a speech on peace, one could reference this quote to emphasize the tragic nature of war.
Grown-ups love figures... When you tell them you've made a new friend they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies? " Instead they demand "How old is he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make? " Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.
Attitude is a paintbrush. It colors everything!
Water, thou hast no taste, no color, no odor; canst not be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself, thou fillest us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses.
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 contadictory! But I was too young to know how to love her.
When a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey.
When the body sinks into death, the essence of man is revealed. Man is a knot, a web, a mesh into which relationships are tied. Only those relationships matter. The body is an old crock that nobody will miss. I have never known a man to think of himself when dying. Never.
The women are, of course, the biggest single group of oppressed people in the world and, if we are to believe the Book of Genesis, the very oldest.
We are the makers of our own lives. There is no such thing as fate. Our lives are the result of our previous actions, our karma, and it naturally flows that, having been ourselves the makers of our karma, we must also be able to unmake it.
When you break the big laws, you do not get liberty; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.
Evil comes to us men of imagination wearing as its mask all the virtues.
It is not we who seek the Way, but the Way which seeks us. That is why you are faithful to it, even while you stand waiting, so long as you are prepared, and act the moment you are confronted by its demands.
The mystical life is at the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.