“The airplane has unveiled for us the true face of the earth. For centuries, highways had been deceiving us. They shape themselves to man’s needs and run from stream to stream.”

-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French writer and aviator, 1900-1944.

This quote comes from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s 1939 book Terre des Hommes, which was subsequently published in English under the name Wind, Sand and Stars. The book is a meditation on flight and the nature of humankind, and in this quote he is describing the new perspective one gets after lifting off the ground in an airplane. For Saint-Exupéry, traveling on the surface involves pre-worn paths, including roads, that don’t expose us to the places on earth untouched by the influence of humankind. When we fly in an airplane, we break free from these pre-worn paths and we can move in any direction and over almost any terrain. It’s part of a longer passage, which follows:

The airplane has unveiled for us the true face of the earth. For centuries, highways had been deceiving us. We were like that queen who determined to move among her subjects so that she might learn for herself whether or not they rejoiced in her reign. Her courtiers took advantage of her innocence to garland the road she traveled and set dancers in her path. Led forward on their halter, she saw nothing of her kingdom and could not know that over the countryside the famished were cursing her. Even so have we been making our way along the winding roads. Roads avoid the barren lands, the rocks, the sands. They shape themselves to man’s needs and run from stream to stream.


Passage taken from de Saint-Exupéry, Antione. Wind, Sand and Stars. Translated by Lewis Galantiere. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1992. 63.