Quote Of The Day By 'The Little Prince' Author Antoine De Saint-Exupéry: 'We Forget That There Is No Hope Of Joy Except In...'

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is best-known as the author of "Le Petit Prince," or "The Little Prince." The fable has become a classic, and tells the story of a pilot who crash-lands in the desert and meets a boy from space. It's a novella full of wisdom and heart, and has sold more than 200 million copies around the world since it was first published in 1943. Saint-Exupéry wrote more than just that book, however. Along with being an author, he was also an accomplished pilot.

Born in Lyon, France, in 1900 to an aristocratic family, Saint-Exupéry faced numerous tragedies early in life —  her was just 4 when his father died, and he was only 17 when his younger brother died. Saint-Exupéry was conscripted into the French military at age 21 and he became a pilot for the French Air Force. In 1926, he started delivering airmail from France to West Africa. He crashed more than once, including in 1935 when he and his co-pilot ended up stranded in the Sahara Desert for four days. His travels and travails as a pilot inspired his writing. His first book, "Courrier Sud" ("Southern Mail") was published in 1929.

Saint-Exupéry volunteered as a pilot during World War II and he flew missions until 1940. After that, he moved to America and "The Little Prince" was published in 1943. He returned to flying the same year. In 1944, Saint-Exupéry went out on a reconnaissance flight over southeastern France; he did not come back. The pilot was presumably shot down by German forces, though what truly happened was never determined. Saint-Exupéry had a short but adventurous life, and his thoughtful musings on the human condition are why he's our quote of the day.

While "The Little Prince" is Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's most famous book, he also wrote a memoir about his life called "Wind, Sand and Stars" in 1939. It won the Grand Prix of the Académie Française, a prestigious literary prize, and gave us some of Saint-Exupéry's thoughts on the meaning of life as he and his fellow pilots flew the mail to Africa and faced the possibility of death each time.

As he considered the challenges and life and death situations they could find themselves in, he wrote, "We forget that there is no hope of joy except in human relations." In essence, life is about the people with whom we surround ourselves.

It's not just that a lack of social interaction can have an impact on your health. When you look at the deeper meaning of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's quote, it's clear that he valued the connections that we have with our loved ones as the most important thing in life. You can't find it elsewhere — there's no rush of excitement in doing something new or accomplishing a great feat that can match the true joy of connecting with others.

Saint-Exupéry isn't saying you always find joy in others; it's that the only time you could even hope to achieve joy is when you develop and focus on relationships. Not every person in your life is going to bring you happiness, but there are those who will, and those are the relationships worth cultivating and holding onto.

If you're trying to find that same feeling by, say... buying things or advancing on the career ladder, you're going to be disappointed. But you're not alone in thinking those prospects are worth focusing on. In Saint-Exupéry's quote, we can find some grace with how easy it can be to forget that more superficial things won't actually bring us the deep happiness or contentment we seek. Invest time and energy in the people who bring you joy and if you do not have such people who meet that criteria in your life, seek them out and establish the bonds that will ultimately sustain you.

• "Experience teaches us that to love is not to gaze at one another but to gaze together in the same direction."
• "In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness."
• "One will weave the canvas; another will fell a tree by the light of his ax. Yet another will forge nails, and there will be others who observe the stars to learn how to navigate. And yet all will be as one. Building a boat isn't about weaving canvas, forging nails, or reading the sky. It's about giving a shared taste for the sea, by the light of which you will see nothing contradictory but rather a community of love."
• "Only the unknown frightens men. But once a man has faced the unknown, that terror becomes the known."
• "All grown-ups started out as children. (But few of them remember it.)"