The moral lesson conveyed in The Little Princeis that life is only worth living when it is lived for others, not for oneself. The Little Prince lives on his asteroid in peace, taking care of his volcanoes and watching his sunsets. One day a rose appears on his asteroid, and he is intrigued by her, but he soon becomes offended by her conceit and her false words. He leaves her. On his travels, which...
The moral lesson conveyed in The Little Prince is that life is only worth living when it is lived for others, not for oneself. The Little Prince lives on his asteroid in peace, taking care of his volcanoes and watching his sunsets. One day a rose appears on his asteroid, and he is intrigued by her, but he soon becomes offended by her conceit and her false words. He leaves her. On his travels, which ultimately lead him to Earth, he has a chance to view and evaluate many types of people. Most of the people he meets live only for themselves and don't invest their lives in anyone else. The king wants only to command. The conceited man lives only to be admired. The tippler only wants to drink so he can forget that he is ashamed of his drinking. The businessman wants to own everything without being of any use to the things he owns. What all these men have in common is that they are completely selfish, living only for themselves.
When he reaches the planet of the lamplighter, he summarizes: "That man ... is the only one of them all who does not seem to me ridiculous. Perhaps that is because he is thinking of something else besides himself."
The farther away he gets from his flower, the more he realizes that it was his job to appreciate and protect her, not to get something from her. But when he comes to the garden of roses, he cries because he thinks his flower is not unique, as she had told him.
The fox is the one who teaches the Little Prince the moral lesson clearly. He teaches him what it means to be tamed by someone--which is basically growing to love that person. After taming the fox, the Little Prince realizes that his rose is unique, because she is his rose, and he cares for her. The fox then shares his secret:
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. ... You become responsible forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose."
This secret sums up the moral lesson of the book: Life is meaningful when it is filled with caring relationships.
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