here is my secret

"Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."

    - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Comments

[Lanen]

I just wanted to say thank you for all your work on both your blog and your books. I am reading Just A Geek right now and I love it! I was reading it at work today and started laughing at one of the TNG stories you were telling. Everyone in the office wanted to know what I was doing that was so funny! I grew up as original Star Trek and TNG was beginning and I don't think I ever missed an episode!I look forward to reading your blog from here on out and maybe even being lucky enough to some day meet you in person. PS- It sounds like you have a wonderful family. Tell them I say Happy Valentines Day!

[vincentsmommy]

Thanks for the beautiful photo and quote. I was pleasantly surprised to find I could read it easily after so many years of not using my high school/college French.
Have a Happy Valentine's Day, Wil!

[Andrew]

According to Google, that says:

Here my secrecy. It is very simple: one does not see well that with the heart. Essence is invisible for the eyes.

Somehow, that doesn't sound quite right to me.

[Matt]

It's a quotation from a children's book, Le Petit Prince. The English translation is thus:

Here is 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.

It's been translated into just about every language currently in use. Get a copy; it's very deep and very poignant. It's just wrapped in the guise of a children's book so that little kids will read it.

[r.a.d.]

Oh - I love The Little Prince!

[r.a.d.]

--and posted before I finshed what I was going to say...
anyway: it's one of those reads that ages as you do - you always manage to get something more out of it with every read. and something I'm asked about all the time at the bookstore where I work (when I'm not being a student), it's also every interesting how many people want it both in english and french... I guess somethings are lost in translation, but you wouldn't know it

[r.a.d.]

... and it's also a beautiful photo (I'm kind of spacing it tonight) - perhaps a millionth job opportunity for you?

[em]

Happy Valentine's Day

[R]

so beautiful. I've been photographing treetops lately as well. And I put that quotation in my wedding programs. J'adore Le Petit Prince.

[starshine_diva]

Gorgeous. I'm a sucker for sunsets.

[Kudra]

I opened your page and sat transfixed for almost a minute staring at that gorgeous picture. That you quoted the little prince made it even better. Thanks Wil :)

[jamenta]

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

-Keats

[jtbwriter]

That is just a glorious picture-thanks for sharing it and the quote!

[LissaMonster]

Oh, you make me want to re-read Le Petit Prince, en francais. :) I haven't read that since high school. Thank you!

[JaynesGirl]

Thank you for the reminder of beauty in the world.

[zume]

Dude, sorry but I don't parlay I-taliano... speeke english?

After all: Te audire non possum. Musa sapeintum fixa est in aure.

[Azriel]

evidently zume doesnt parlay french either :)

[MCKathi]

"Hier mein Geheimnis. Es ist ganz einfach: man sieht nur mit dem Herzen gut. Das Wesentliche ist für die Augen unsichtbar."

[Phil]

I can't read French, so thank you, Matt, for the translation. I have heard this excerpt before -- Mister Rogers used it when giving commencement addresses. I heard him give the speech once; I went to commencement even though I wasn't in school anymore nor did I know anyone graduating. I went there just to hear him, because he was a big part of my childhood. In it, he used that quote to remind us that what makes us special and essential can't be seen; it's inside us.

I was so happy to have heard him speak, and I was very saddened when I learned he had died. His death made me go back and reread the speech and write my own appreciation of what he meant to me.

(Do a Google search for "Mister Rogers commencement" and you'll find lots of links with several versions of his speech.)

So, thanks, Wil, for making me think of that great day and Mister Rogers' words once again.

[busymomma]

It's very odd to see a tree with buds on it in a beautiful sunset, while I'm sitting listening to the sleet bounce off my windows.

I have loved Le Petit Prince since 9th grade French Class (in other words--a long time ago). I haven't read it in a long time. I think when the weather clears I'll have to see if they have a copy in the local library. I doubt I can do the French translation, though.

[CHV]

Doesn't the Little Prince blow his brains out with a .45 at the end of the story?

Or am I thinking of something else?

[Rendition]

I gre up in France and for a while went to school there. I discovered St. Exupery and fell in love with his writing, especially "Courrier Sud" where he writes about delivering mail in and around Dakar.

I haven't read him for decades and I will be digging up my dog-eared paperbacks as soon as I finish writing this. Once again. Thanks for the reminder.