Dante Alighieri > Quotes

“Do not be afraid; our fate
Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“In that book which is my memory,
On the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you,
Appear the words, ‘Here begins a new life’.”
― Dante Alighieri, Vita Nuova

“There is no greater sorrow
Than to recall a happy time
When miserable.”
― Dante Alighieri

“Amor, ch'al cor gentile ratto s'apprende
prese costui de la bella persona
che mi fu tolta; e 'l modo ancor m'offende.

Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona,
Mi prese del costui piacer sì forte,
Che, come vedi, ancor non m'abbandona..."

"Love, which quickly arrests the gentle heart,
Seized him with my beautiful form
That was taken from me, in a manner which still grieves me.

Love, which pardons no beloved from loving,
took me so strongly with delight in him
That, as you see, it still abandons me not...”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“The path to paradise begins in hell.”
― Dante Alighieri

“Remember tonight... for it is the beginning of always”
― Dante Alighieri

“Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
[Omnes relinquite spes, o vos intrantes]”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

“The more a thing is perfect, the more if feels pleasure and pain.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

“In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost.”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric moved:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I shall endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

“The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time.”
― Dante Alighieri

“Love insists the loved loves back”
― Dante Alighieri

“O human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

“And we came forth to contemplate the stars.”
― Dante Alighieri

“Into the eternal darkness, into fire and into ice. ”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

“No sadness is greater than in misery to rehearse memories of joy.”
― Dante Alighieri

“The man who lies asleep will never waken fame, and his desire and all his life drift past him like a dream, and the traces of his memory fade from time like smoke in air, or ripples on a stream.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

“They yearn for what they fear for.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

“From there we came outside and saw the stars”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“I felt for the tormented whirlwinds
Damned for their carnal sins
Committed when they let their passions rule their reason.”
― Dante Alighieri

“Through me you go into a city of weeping; through me you go into eternal pain; through me you go amongst the lost people”
― Dante Alighieri, The Inferno

“Nature is the art of God.”
― Dante Alighieri

“...ma gia volgena il mio disio e'l velle
si come rota ch'igualmente e mossa,
l'amor che move: i sole e l'altre stelle
...as a wheel turns smoothtly, free from jars, my will and my desire were turned by love, The love that moves the sun and the other stars.”
― Dante Alighieri, Paradiso

“A mighty flame follows a tiny spark.”
― Dante Alighieri

“He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it.”
― Dante Alighieri

“The devil is not as black as he is painted.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

“l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle (The love that moves the sun and the other stars)”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

“As little flowers, which the chill of night has bent and huddled, when the white sun strikes, grow straight and open fully on their stems, so did I, too, with my exhausted force.”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“Heaven wheels above you, displaying to you her eternal glories, and still your eyes are on the ground”
― Dante Alighieri

“In His will, our peace.”
― Dante Alighieri

“Beauty awakens the soul to act.”
― Dante Alighieri

“The day that man allows true love to appear, those things which are well made will fall into cofusion and will overturn everything we believe to be right and true.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

“...Noi leggeveamo un giorno per diletto
Di Lancialotto, come amor lo strinse;
Soli eravamo e senza alcun sospetto
Per più fiate gli occhi ci sospinse
Quella lettura, e scolorocci il viso;
Ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse.
Quando leggemmo il disiato riso
Esser baciato da cotanto amante,
Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso,
La bocca mi baciò tutto tremante.
Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse:
Quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante."

""We were reading one day, to pass the time,
of Lancelot, how love had seized him.
We were alone, and without any suspicion
And time and time again our eyes would meet
over that literature, and our faces paled,
and yet one point alone won us.
When we had read how the desired smile
was kissed by so true a lover,
This one, who never shall be parted from me,
kissed my mouth, all a-tremble.
Gallehault was the book and he who wrote it
That day we read no further.”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“I, answering in the end, began: 'Alas,
how many yearning thoughts, what great desire,
have lead them through such sorrow to their fate?”
― Dante Alighieri

“Consider your origin. You were not formed to live like brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

“Here sighs and cries and shrieks of lamentation
echoed throughout the starless air of Hell;
at first these sounds resounding made me weep:

tongues confused, a language strained in anguish
with cadences of anger, shrill outcries
and raucous groans that joined with sounds of hands,
raising a whirling storm that turns itself
forever through that air of endless black,
like grains of sand swirling when a whirlwind blows.

And I, in the midst of all this circling horror,
began, "Teacher, what are these sounds I hear?
What souls are these so overwhelmed by grief?"

And he to me: "This wretched state of being
is the fate of those sad souls who lived a life
but lived it with no blame and with no praise.
They are mixed with that repulsive choir of angels
neither faithful nor unfaithful to their God,
who undecided stood but for themselves.

Heaven, to keep its beauty, cast them out,
but even Hell itself would not receive them,
for fear the damned might glory over them."

And I. "Master, what torments do they suffer
that force them to lament so bitterly?"
He answered: "I will tell you in few words:

these wretches have no hope of truly dying,
and this blind life they lead is so abject
it makes them envy every other fate.

The world will not record their having been there;
Heaven's mercy and its justice turn from them.
Let's not discuss them; look and pass them by...”
― Dante Alighieri

“The experience of this sweet life.”
― Dante Alighieri

“To get back up to the shining world from there
My guide and I went into that hidden tunnel,

And Following its path, we took no care
To rest, but climbed: he first, then I-so far,
through a round aperture I saw appear

Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears,
Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars.”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“He is, most of all, l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle.”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“As one who sees in dreams and wakes to find the emotional impression of his vision still powerful while its parts fade from his mind - Just such am I, having lost nearly all the vision itself, while in my heart I feel the sweetness of it yet distill and fall.”
― Dante Alighieri, Paradiso

“One ought to be afraid of nothing other then things possessed of power to do us harm, but things innoucuous need not be feared.”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“Lost are we, and are only so far punished,
That without hope we live on in desire.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

“Perceive ye not that we are worms, designed
To form the angelic butterfly, that goes
To judgment, leaving all defence behind?
Why doth your mind take such exalted pose,
Since ye, disabled, are as insects, mean
As worm which never transformation knows?”
― Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio

“As flowerlets drooped and puckered in the night turn up to the returning sun and spread their petals wide on his new warmth and light-just so my wilted spirits rose again and such a heat of zeal surged through my veins that I was born anew.”
― Dante Alighieri

“Ye who enter,abandon all hope.”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“But already my desire and my will
were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed,
by the Love which moves the sun and the other stars”
― Dante Alighieri

“It was the hour of morning,
when the sun mounts with those stars
that shone with it when God's own love
first set in motion those fair things”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“And following its path, we took no care
To rest, but climbed: he first, then I-- so far,
Through a round aperture I saw appear
Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears,
Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Inferno

“Justice does not descend from its own pinnacle.”
― Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio