Dante Alighieri Quotes
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The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time.
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Do not be afraid; our fate Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.
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It is necessity and not pleasure that compels us.
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There are souls beneath that water. Fixed in slimethey speak their piece, end it, and start again:'Sullen were we in the air made sweet by the Sun;in the glory of his shining our hearts poureda bitter smoke. Sullen were we begun;sullen we lie forever in this ditch.'This litany they gargle in their throatsas if they sand, but lacked the words and pitch.
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Eternal love made me.
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That which had pleased me once, troubled by spirit.
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If anyone should want to know my name, I am called Leah. And I spend all my time weaving garlands of flowers with my fair hands, t o please me when I stand before the mirror; my sister Rachel sits all the day long before her own, and never moves away. She loves to contemplate her lovely eyes; I love to use my hands to adorn myself: her joy is in reflection, mine in act.
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Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. Omnes relinquite spes, o vos intrantes
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A fair request should be followed by the deed in silence.
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... Nessun maggior dolore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria. (There is no greater pain than to remember a happy time when one is in misery.)
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And here Dante describes an evidently spherical world... "The lamp of the world the sun rises to mortals through different passages; but through that which joins four circles with three crosses the position of the rising sun at the vernal equinox it issues with a better course and conjoined with better stars, and tempers and stamps the wax of the world more after its own fashion. Although such an outlet had made morning there and evening here, and all the hemisphere there was bright, and the other dark..."
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Genus vero philosophie, sub quo hic in toto et parte proceditur, est morale negotium, sive ethica; quia non ad speculandum, sed ad opus inventum est totum et pars.
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I presumed to fix my look on the eternal light so long that I consumed my sight thereon.
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Love kindled by virtue always kindles another, provided that its flame appear outwardly.
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Beauty awakens the soul to act.
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Less shame a greater fault would palliate.
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The heavens call to you, and circle about you, displaying to you their eternal splendors, and your eye gazes only to earth.
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They find seven cornices on which penitent and redeemed sinners are cleansed by the grace of God. On the first cornice, that of Pride, the proud are learning humility: Our Father, dwelling in the Heavens, nowise As circumscribed, but as the things above, Thy first effects, are dearer in Thine eyes, Hallowed Thy name be and the Power thereof, By every creature, as right meet it is We praise the tender effluence of Thy love. Let come to us, let come Thy kingdom's peace.
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Knowledge comes Of learning well retain'd, unfruitful else.
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O you proud Christians, wretched souls and small,/ Who by the dim lights of your twisted minds/ Believe you prosper even as you fall,/ Can you not see that we are worms, each one/ Born to become the angelic butterfly/ That flies defenseless to the Judgement Throne?
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Unity in wills cannot be unless there is one will dominating and ruling all the rest to oneness... wills of mortals have need of a directive principle... therefore for the well-being of the world, there should be a monarchy.
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Doubting pleases me no less than knowing.
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Those ancients who in poetry presented the golden age, who sang its happy state, perhaps, in their Parnassus, dreamt this place. Here, mankind's root was innocent; and here were every fruit and never-ending spring; these streams--the nectar of which poets sing.
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As phantoms frighten beasts when shadows fall.