Dante Alighieri Quotations

The secret of getting things done is to act!

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.

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

From a little spark may burst a flame.

Heaven wheels above you, displaying to you her eternal glories, and still your eyes are on the ground.

Pride, envy, avarice - these are the sparks have set on fire the hearts of all men.

In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.

There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.

Consider your origins: you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.

Remember tonight... for it is the beginning of always.

Be as a tower firmly set; Shakes not its top for any blast that blows.

The customs and fashions of men change like leaves on the bough, some of which go and others come.

Art, as far as it is able, follows nature, as a pupil imitates his master; thus your art must be, as it were, God's grandchild.

If the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought.

You shall find out how salt is the taste of another man's bread, and how hard is the way up and down another man's stairs.

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

The sad souls of those who lived without blame and without praise.

Heat cannot be separated from fire, or beauty from The Eternal.

I wept not, so to stone within I grew.

The more perfect a thing is, the more susceptible to good and bad treatment it is.

At this high moment, ability failed my capacity to describe.

I love to doubt as well as know.

Small projects need much more help than great.

No one thinks of how much blood it costs.

Yes, and he's cut in two because he has brought division to society.

Through me the way into the suffering city,Through me the way to the eternal pain,Through me the way that runs among the lost.Justice urged on my high artificer;My maker was divine authority,The highest wisdom, and the primal love.Before me nothing but eternal things were made,And I endure eternally.Abandon every hope, ye who enter here.

Love that moves the sun and the other stars.

From a little spark bursts a mighty flame

There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time in the midst of wretchedness.

There is no greater sorrow than to be mindful of the happy time in misery.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

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.

These dwell among the blackest souls,loaded down deep by sins of differing types.If you sink far enough,you'll see them all.

That infinite and indescribable good which is there above races as swiftly to love as a ray of light to a bright body.It gives of itself according to the ardor it finds, so that as charity spreads farther the eternal good increases upon it,and the more souls there are who love, up there, the more there are to love well, and the more love they reflect to each other, as in a mirror.

I saw a point that shone with light so keen, the eye that sees it cannot bear its blazing; the star that is for us the smallest one would seem a moon if placed beside this point.

He loves but little who can say and count in words, how much he loves.

In that part of the book of my memory before the which is little that can be read, there is a rubric, saying, Incipit Vita Nova. Under such rubric I find written many things; and among them the words which I purpose to copy into this little book; if not all of them, at the least their substance.

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.

…all things created have an order in themselves, and this begets the form that lets the universe resemble God.

Fame is not won on downy plumes nor under canopies; the man who consumes his days without obtaining it leaves such mark of himself on earth as smoke in air or foam on water.

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

So may heaven's grace clear away the foam from the conscience, that the river of thy thoughts may roll limpid thenceforth.

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.

If you follow your natural bent;you will definitely go to heaven

e quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle" ("and thence we came forth to see again the stars")

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

When we encountered a band of souls coming along the barrier, and each was gazing at us in the evening people gaze at one another under the new moon

I made my own house be my gallows.

The splendors that belong unto the fame of earth are but a wind, that in the same direction lasts not long.

I am searching for that which every man seeks-peace and rest.

Come, follow me, and leave the world to its babblings.

My soul tasted that heavenly food, which gives new appetite while it satiates.

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

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.

Mankind, why do ye set your hearts on things That, of necessity, may not be shared?

To course across more kindly waters now my talent's little vessel lifts her sails, leaving behind herself a sea so cruel; and what I sing will be that second kingdom, in which the human soul is cleansed of sin, becoming worthy of ascent to Heaven.

Less shame a greater fault would palliate.

Love is the source of every virtue in you and of every deed which deserves punishment.

We are but a day in this world, and in that day the fashion is changed a thousand times: all seek liberty, yet all deprive themselves of it.

There is in hell a place stone-built throughout, Called Malebolge, of an iron hue, Like to the wall that circles it about.

Love with delight discourses in my mindUpon my lady's admirable gifts...Beyond the range of human intellect.

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

O human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?

I am the way into the city of woe. I am the way to a forsaken people. I am the way into eternal sorrow. Sacred justice moved my architect. I was raised here by divine omnipotence, Primordial love and ultimate intellect. Only those elements time cannot wear Were made before me, and beyond time I stand. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.

What shall one do with the verse, if he knows not That?

Ah! Justice of our God! Who else could stow Such travails new and pains as met my glance!

Infinite goodness has such wide arms.

The glory of Him who moves everything penetrates through the universe, and is resplendent in one part more and in another less.

I found myself within a forest dark,

I affirm that gain is precisely that which comes oftener to the bad man than to the good; for illegitimate gains never come to the good at all, because they reject them. And lawful gains rarely come to the good, because, since much anxious care is needful thereto, and the anxious care of the good man is directed to weightier matters, rarely does the good man give sufficient attention thereto. Wherefore it is clear that in every way the advent of these riches is iniquitous.

Sounds like you're overcompensating... Besides, I didn't want you to get a creak in your neck from lookin' down at me.

A rapid bolt will rend the clouds apart, and every single White be seared by wounds. I tell you this. I want it all to hurt.

Often a retrospect delights the mind.

The truth thy speech doth show, within my heart reproves the swelling pride. [It., Lo tuo ver dir m'incuora Buona umilta e gran tumor m'appiani.]

Curb your talent lest it speed where virtue does not guide.

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.

Behold a God more powerful than I who comes to rule over me.

A prayer may chance to rise From one whose heart lives in the grace of God. A prayer from any other is unheeded.

No man may be so cursed by priest or pope but what the Eternal Love may still return while any thread of green lives on in hope.

Many have justice in their hearts, but slowly it is let fly, for it comes not without council to the bow.

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

The human race is in the best condition when it has the greatest degree of liberty.

That which had pleased me once, troubled by spirit.

Sta come torre ferma, che non crolla Giammai la cima per soffiar de' venti. Be steadfast as a tower that doth not bend its stately summit to the tempest's shock.

At the midpoint on the journey of life, I found myself in a dark forest, for the clear path was lost...

A fair request should be followed by the deed in silence.

Love, which insists that love shall mutual be.

In judgement be ye not too confident, Even as a man who will appraise his corn When standing in a field, ere it is ripe.

If thou follow thy star, thou canst not fail of glorious heaven.

This sorrow weighs upon the melancholy souls of those who lived without infamy or praise.

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

Imagination, that dost so abstract us That we are not aware, not even when A thousand trumpets sound about our ears!

Apparuit iam beatitudo vestra,

Before me things created were none, save things Eternal, and eternal I endure. All hope abandon, ye who enter here.

You can stay and die or you can walk your ugly ass back through that gate. It's your call, pal.

Doubting pleases me no less than knowing

Love hath so long possessed me for his own And made his lordship so familiar.

If you're asking for a date, forget it. 'Cause I make it a point not to go out with women who shoot me in the head!

I'm beginning to think I've got rotten luck with women.

I know this is a major cultural artifact but it's bad for the community.