Dante Alighieri Quotes
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Mankind, why do ye set your hearts on things That, of necessity, may not be shared?
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My soul tasted that heavenly food, which gives new appetite while it satiates.
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The greatest gift that God in His bounty made in creation, and the most conformable to His goodness, and that which He prizes the most, was the freedom of will, with which the creatures with intelligence, they all and they alone, were and are endowed.
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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.
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Through me you go into a city of weeping; through me you go into eternal pain; through me you go amongst the lost people.
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O faithful conscience, delicately pure, how doth a little failing wound thee sore!
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At grief so deep the tongue must wag in vain; the language of our sense and memory lacks the vocabulary of such pain.
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Three sparks - pride, envy, and avarice - have been kindled in all hearts.
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As fall the light autumnal leaves, one still the other following, till the bough strews all its honors on the earth below.
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He whom you see-along the downward arc- was William, and the land that mourns his death, for living Charles and Frederick, now laments; now he has learned how Heaven loves the just ruler, and he would show this outwardly as well, so radiantly visible.
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Many have justice in their hearts, but slowly it is let fly, for it comes not without council to the bow.
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Curb your talent lest it speed where virtue does not guide.
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Without hope we live in desire.
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O power of fantasy that steals our minds from things outside, to leave us unaware, although a thousand trumpets may blow loud--what stirs you if the senses show you nothing? Light stirs you, formed in Heaven, by itself, or by His will Who sends it down to us.
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Oh blind! Oh ignorant, self-seeking cupidity which spurs us so in the short mortal life and steeps us so through all eternity!
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Thou shall know by experience how salt the savor is of others' bread, and how sad a path it is to climb and descend another's stairs.
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Lying in a featherbed will bring you no fame, nor staying beneath the quilt, and he who uses up his life without achieving fame leaves no more vestige of himself on Earth than smoke in the air or foam upon the water.
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Voi vigilate ne l'etterno die.
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O how far remov'd, Predestination! is thy foot from such As see not the First Cause entire: and ye, O mortal men! be wary how ye judge: For we, who see the Maker, know not yet The number of the chosen; and esteem Such scantiness of knowledge our delight: For all good is, in that primal good, Concentrate; and God's will and ours are one.
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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.
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What shall one do with the verse, if he knows not That?
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And when he had put his hand on mine with a cheerful look, wherefrom I took courage, he brought me within to the secret things. Here sighs, laments, and deep wailings were resounding through the starless air; wherefore at first I wept thereat. Strange tongues, horrible utterances, words of woe, accents of anger, voices high and faint, and sounds of hands with them, were making a tumult which whirls always in that air forever dark, like the sand when the whirlwind breathes.
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...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.
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There, pride, avarice, and envy are the tongues men know and heed, a Babel of despair.