The opening of the story highlights the Little Prince's difference from typical adults. When the pilot shows him the picture he has drawn of the elephant inside the boa constrictor, the Little Prince immediately knows what it is. This contrasts sharply to the other people the pilot knows, who all think he has simply drawn a hat.

The Little Prince is different because he has both a capacity to see to the heart of what is important and an innocence which most other adults have lost. For example, when the Little Prince visits nearby planets, the adults on those planets are interested in things that make no sense to him, such as rigidly defining their careers, power, and ownership. On one planet, he meets the geographer who can't explore even though he wants to, because he defines himself as a geographer and not an explorer. The Little Prince also meets the king who claims that he rules the entire universe but in fact has no real power, and he meets the accountant who has counted all the stars and thus claims ownership of them, even though that ownership is meaningless.

The Little Prince has lived most of his life on a tiny planet and that has kept him more innocent than other people. For instance, he thinks his beloved rose is the only rose in the universe and is shocked when he sees thousands of roses. Yet, because of his capacity to penetrate to what matters the most, he easily understands that his rose is all important to him because he loves it.

Through the Little Prince, we can all learn lessons about living more innocently and focusing on what is important.