Dante Alighieri Quotes

For where the instrument of intelligence is added to brute power and evil will, mankind is powerless in its own defense.

I did not die, and yet I lost life’s breath

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.

Consider the sea's listless chime: Time's self it is, made audible.

A mighty flame followeth a tiny spark.

Still desiring, we live without hope.

O mortal men, be wary of how ye judge.

The experience of this sweet life.

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

Here let dead poetry rise once more to life.

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

There is no greater pain than to remember, in our present grief, past happiness.

There's not the least thing can be said or done, but people will talk and find fault.

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

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

As, pricked out with less and greater lights, between the poles of the universe, the Milky Way so gleameth white as to set very sages questioning.

Follow your own star!

The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time.

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

Do not desert me when I need you most. And if we can't go on together, let's retrace our steps as quickly as we can.

The man who lies asleep will never waken fame, and his desire and all his life drift past him like a dream, and the traces of his memory fade from time like smoke in air, or ripples on a stream.

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.

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.

Consider that this day ne'er dawns again.

The whole universe is but the footprint of the Divine goodness.

At grief so deep the tongue must wag in vain; the language of our sense and memory lacks the vocabulary of such pain.

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.

It is no learning to understand what you do not retain.

No one thinks of how much blood it costs.

And we came forth to contemplate the stars.

Thus you may understand that love alone is the true seed of every merit in you, and of all acts for which you must atone.

The heavens call to you, and circle about you, displaying to you their eternal splendors, and your eye gazes only to earth.

So that the Universe felt love, by which, as somebelieve, the world has many times been turned to chaos. And at that moment this ancient rock, here and elsewhere, fell broken into pieces.

A backward glance can often lift the heart.

Justice does not descend from its own pinnacle.

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

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.

Now you know how much my love for you burns deep in me when I forget about our emptiness, and deal with shadows as with solid things.

For she doth make my veins and pulses tremble.

Honor is the greatest poet.

Conscience, that boon companion who sets a man free under the strong breastplate of innocence, that bids him on and fear not.

Oh blind! Oh ignorant, self-seeking cupidity which spurs us so in the short mortal life and steeps us so through all eternity!

In each fire there is a spirit; Each one is wrapped in what is burning him.

Love kindled by virtue always kindles another, provided that its flame appear outwardly.

Through me you go into a city of weeping; through me you go into eternal pain; through me you go amongst the lost people

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

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

There, pride, avarice, and envy are the tongues men know and heed, a Babel of depsair

If a thief helps a poor man out of the spoils of his thieving, we must not call that charity.

The human race finds itself in a better situation when it has the higher level of freedom.