Dante Alighieri Quotes

151 Sourced Quotes

Lost are we, and are only so far punished,
That without hope we live on in desire.

Dante Alighieri
Pride, Envy, and Avarice are the three sparks that have set these hearts on fire.

Dante Alighieri
Thy soul is by vile fear assailed, which oft so overcasts a man, that he recoils from noblest resolution, like a beast at some false semblance in the twilight gloom.

Dante Alighieri
But when thou shalt be in the sweet world, I pray thee bring me to men's memory.

Dante Alighieri
He who shall never be divided from me kissed my mouth all trembling.

Dante Alighieri
Thou shalt prove how salt is the taste of another's bread and how hard is the way up and down another man's stairs.

Dante Alighieri
Necessity brings him [Dante] here, not pleasure.

Dante Alighieri
In that part of the book of my memory before which is little that can be read, there is a rubric, saying, "Incipit Vita Nova [The new life begins]."

Dante Alighieri
And as he, who with laboring breath has escaped from the deep to the shore, turns to the perilous waters and gazes.

Dante Alighieri
In his arms, my lady lay asleep, wrapped in a veil. He woke her then and trembling and obedient she ate that burning heart out of his hand. Weeping I saw him then depart from me.

Dante Alighieri
Everyone confusedly conceives of a good in which the mind may be at rest, and desires it; wherefore everyone strives to attain it.

Dante Alighieri
Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path. How hard it is to tell what it was like, this wood of wilderness, savage and stubborn (the thought of it brings back all my old fears), a bitter place! Death could scarce be bitterer. But if I would show the good that came of it I must talk about things other than the good.

Dante Alighieri
But so much the more malign and wild does the ground become with bad seed and untilled, as it has the more of good earthly vigor.

Dante Alighieri
If I thought my answer were to one who would ever return to the world, this flame should stay without another movement; but since none ever returned alive from this depth, if what I hear is true, I answer thee without fear of infamy.

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
I saw within Its depth how It conceives all things in a single volume bound by Love, of which the universe is the scattered leaves.

Dante Alighieri
Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty. We must recall that the basic principle is freedom of choice, which saying many have on their lips but few in their minds.

Dante Alighieri
O human race born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou fall.

Dante Alighieri
Into the eternal darkness, into fire and into ice.

Dante Alighieri
With the color that paints the morning and evening clouds that face the sun I saw then the whole heaven suffused.

Dante Alighieri
Open your mind to what I shall disclose, and hold it fast within you; he who hears, but does not hold what he has heard, learns nothing.

Dante Alighieri
O conscience, upright and stainless, how bitter a sting to thee is a little fault!

Dante Alighieri
At once I understood, and I was sure this was that sect of evil souls who were hateful to God and to His enemies.

Dante Alighieri
The more a thing is perfect, the more if feels pleasure and pain.

Dante Alighieri
"Why is thy mind so entangled," said the Master [Virgil], "that thou slackenest thy pace? What is it to thee what they whisper there? Come after me and let the people talk. Stand like a firm tower that never shakes its top for blast of wind."

Dante Alighieri
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.

Dante Alighieri
One ought to be afraid of nothing other then things possessed of power to do us harm, but things innocuous need not be feared.

Dante Alighieri
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
Strange lamentations assailed me that had their shafts barbed with pity.

Dante Alighieri
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.

Dante Alighieri