This section gathers brief quotations from authors who, directly or indirectly, have explored the central themes of the DARE project: health, prevention, time, care, technology, and the human condition.
These are not mere literary embellishments, but sparks for reflection—inviting us to renew our perspective on the present, finding in the essential nature of the aphorism a key to understanding—and, at times, reimagining—our world.
The passage we present in this issue of the newsletter is taken from Terre des hommes by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It is not merely an ode to flight, but a profound meditation on the relationship between humanity, technology, and nature. Far from passively admiring the landscape, the pilot becomes an interpreter of the world’s complexity—both participant and vulnerable. This image also speaks to those who, today, are charting new courses in prevention and innovation.
«Et si même le voyage est un voyage heureux, le pilote qui navigue quelque part, sur son tronçon de ligne, n’assiste pas à un simple spectacle.
Ces couleurs de la terre et du ciel, ces traces de vent sur la mer, ces nuages dorés du crépuscule, il ne les admire point, mais les médite.
Semblable au paysan qui fait sa tournée dans son domaine et qui prévoit, à mille signes, la marche du printemps, la menace du gel, l’annonce de la pluie, le pilote de métier, lui aussi, déchiffre des signes de neige, des signes de brume, des signes de nuit bienheureuse.
La machine, qui semblait d’abord l’en écarter, le soumet avec plus de rigueur encore, aux grands problèmes naturels.
Seul au milieu du vaste tribunal qu’un ciel de tempête lui compose, ce pilote dispute son courrier à trois divinités élémentaires, la montagne, la mer et l’orage. »
"And even if the journey is a happy one, the pilot who is flying his course is not a mere spectator.
The colors of the earth and sky, the wind’s trails over the sea, the golden clouds of evening, he does not simply admire them; he meditates upon them.
Like the peasant making his rounds on his land, who from a thousand signs can foretell the coming of spring, the threat of frost, the promise of rain, the professional pilot, too, reads the signs—signs of snow, signs of fog, signs of a blessed night.
The machine, which at first seemed to separate him from these things, subjects him more rigorously still to the great natural problems.
Alone in the midst of the vast tribunal that a stormy sky sets up for him, the pilot fights for his mail against three elemental divinities: mountain, sea, and storm.”