Living is being born slowly. It would be a little too easy if we could borrow ready-made souls.
Interpretation
Life is a gradual process of developing one's self and identity, rather than acquiring pre-formed beliefs or traits.
In this quote, Saint-Exupery emphasizes that the experience of living is a gradual journey of self-discovery and personal growth. He asserts that if it were possible to simply acquire existing identities or 'ready-made souls', it would remove the depth and complexity of individual existence, which is formed through unique experiences and challenges over time.
In practice
In a graduation speech to illustrate the journey of personal growth.
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.
Our suffering is caused by holding on to how things might have been, should have been, could have been.
It is a well-known fact that we see the faults in other's works more readily than we do in our own.
'Tis a short sight to limit our faith in laws to those of gravity, of chemistry, of botany, and so forth. Those laws do not stop where our eyes lose them, but push the same geometry and chemistry up into the invisible plane of social and rational life, so that, look where we will, in a boy's game, or in the strifes of races, a perfect reaction, a perpetual judgment keeps watch and ward.
It is impossible to account for the creation of the universe without the agency of a Supreme Being.
The practice of yoga induces a primary sense of measure and proportion. Reduced to our own body, our first instrument, we learn to play it, drawing from it maximum resonance and harmony.
I will tell you something about stories . . . They aren't just entertainment. Don't be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death.
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