Dante Alighieri Quotes

151 Sourced Quotes

A man's renown is like the hue of grass, Which comes and goes.

Dante Alighieri
Worldly fame is but a breath of wind that blows now this way, and now that, and changes name as it changes direction.

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

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

Dante Alighieri
Therefore the sight that is granted to your world penetrates within the Eternal Justice as the eye into the sea; for though from the shore it sees the bottom, in the open sea it does not, and yet the bottom is there but the depth conceals it.

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
"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
There sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the starless air, so that at first it made me weep; strange tongues, horrible language, words of pain, tones of anger, voices loud and hoarse, and with these the sound of hands, made a tumult which is whirling through that air forever dark, as sand eddies in a whirlwind.

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

Dante Alighieri
Love, which absolves no beloved one from loving, seized me so strongly with his charm that, as thou seest, it does not leave me yet.

Dante Alighieri
When I had journeyed half of our life's way, I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does not stray.

Dante Alighieri
In that book which is
My memory...
On the first page
That is the chapter when
I first met you
Appear the words...
Here begins a new life.

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
Compassion is not a passion; rather a noble disposition of the soul, made ready to receive love, mercy, and other charitable passions.

Dante Alighieri
Unless, before then, the prayer assist me which rises from a heart that lives in grace: what avails the other, which is not heard in heaven?

Dante Alighieri
Midway in our life's journey, I went astray
from the straight road and woke to find myself
alone in a dark wood.

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
Pure essence, and pure matter, and the two joined into one were shot forth without flaw, like three bright arrows from a three-string bow.

Dante Alighieri
Of my sowing such straw I reap. O human folk, why set the heart there where exclusion of partnership is necessary

Dante Alighieri
Knowledge comes
Of learning well retain'd, unfruitful else.

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
He goes seeking liberty, which is so dear, as he knows who for it renounces life.

Dante Alighieri
And thence we issued forth again to see the stars.

Dante Alighieri
The reputation which the world bestows
is like the wind, that shifts now here now there,
its name changed with the quarter whence it blows.

Dante Alighieri