Dante Alighieri Quotes

What is it then? Why do you hesitate?
Why do you relish living like a coward?
Why cannot you be bold and keen to start?

He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it.

Lying in a featherbed will not bring you 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.

A mighty flame followeth a tiny spark.

Seldom indeed does human virtue rise From trunk to branch.

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.

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

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

Three sparks
pride, envy, and avarice
have been kindled in all hearts.

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

Everywhere is here and every when is now.

If you, free as you are of every weight
had stayed below, then that would be as strange
as living flame on earth remaining still.
And then she turned her gaze up toward the heavens.

My will and my desire were both revolved, as is a wheel in even motion driven, by Love, which moves the sun and other stars.

It bugs the crap out of me when somebody talks more than I do.

The Love that moves the sun and all the other stars.

Not one drop of blood is left inside my veins that does not throb: I recognize signs of the ancient flame.

As the geometer intently seeks
to square the circle, but he cannot reach, through thought on thought, the principle he needs, so I searched that strange sight.

When any of our faculties retains
a strong impression of delight or pain,
the soul will wholly concentrate on that,
neglecting any other power it has;
and thus, when something seen
or heard secures the soul in stringent grip,
time moves and yet we do not notice it.

Here let dead poetry rise once more to life.

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

O virgin mother, daughter of thy Son,
humble beyond all creatures and more exalted;
predestined turning point of God's intention;
Thy merit so ennobled human nature
that its divine Creator did not scorn
to make Himself the creature of His creature.
The Love that was rekindled in Thy womb
sends for the warmth of the eternal peace
within whose ray this flower has come to bloom.
Here to us, thou art the noon and scope
of Love revealed; and among mortal men,
the living fountain of eternal hope.

It may be that what we call modern is nothing, but what is not worthy of remaining to become old.

Being by such a noble lover kissed,
This one, who ne'er from me shall be divided,
Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating.

You learn by trying, making mistakes, correcting and trying again and again until your reach the desired goal, which is rarely without effort, but is rather a reward for hard work.

Doubting charms me not less than knowledge.

Will cannot be quenched against its will.

Follow your path, and let the people talk.

He is not always at ease who laughs.

Remember, this day will never dawn again.

I cannot well repeat how there I entered,

Madness it is to hope that human minds
can ever understand the Infinite
that comprehends Three Persons in One Being.
Be satisfied with quia unexplained,
O Human race! If you knew everything,
no need for Mary to have borne a son.

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

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

Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;
Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,
But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.

What is a smile but the coruscation of the joy of the soul, like the outward shining of an inward light

This beast, at which thou criest out,
Suffers not any one to pass her way
But so doth harass him, that she destroys him;

And has a nature so malign and ruthless
That never doth she glut her greedy will,
And after food is hungrier than before.

I say that when she appeared, in whatever place, by the hope embodied in that marvelous greeting, for me no enemy remained, in fact I shone with a flame of charity that made me grant pardon to whoever had offended me: and if anyone had then asked me anything my reply would only have been: 'Love', with an aspect full of humility.

To run over better waters the little vessel of my genius now hoists her sails, as she leaves behind her a sea so cruel.

All of nature is God's art.

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.

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.

Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.

From one point of view it is an appeal to future ages from Florentine injustice and ingratitude; from another, it is a long and passionate plea with his native town to shake her in her stubborn cruelty.

Turn around, and keep your eyes closed shut, For if the Gorgon, Medusa, does appear, and you see her, You would never be able to return upward.

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.

Only those elements time cannot wear: The Angels, the Empyrean, and the First Matter are the elements time cannot wear, for they will last to all time. Man, however, in his mortal state, is not eternal. The Gate of Hell, therefore, was created before man. The theological point is worth attention. The doctrine of Original Sin is, of course, one familiar to many creeds. Here, however, it would seem that the preparation for damnation predates Original Sin. True, in one interpretation. Hell was created for the punishment of the Rebellious Angels and not for man. Had man not sinned, he would never have known Hell. But on the other hand, Dante's God was one who knew all, and knew therefore that man would indeed sin. The theological problem is an extremely delicate one.

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

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.

Through me the way into the grieving city,
Through me the way into eternal sorrow,
Through me the way among the lost people.
Justice moved my high maker;
Divine power made me,
Highest wisdom and primal love.
Before me were no things created
Except eternal ones, and I endure eternal.
Abandon every hope, you who enter.

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.

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.

Thy wretchedness weighs upon me, so that it to weep invites me.

Within her presence, I had once been used
to feeling - trembling - wonder, dissolution;
but that was long ago. Still, though my soul,
now she was veiled, could not see her directly,
by way of hidden force that she could move,
I felt the mighty power of old love.

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

Through me, the way is to the suffering city; Through me, the way is to eternal pain; Through me, the way among the people lost.

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

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

We climbed, he first and I behind, until though a small round opening ahead of us, I saw the lovely things the heavens hold, and we came out to see once more the stars.

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

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.

Justice divine has weighed: the doom is clear. All hope renounce, ye lost, who enter here.

It is necessity and not pleasure that compels us.
[Italian: Necessita c'induce, e non diletto.]

And after he had laid his hand on mine
With joyful mien, whence I was comforted,
He led me in among the secret things.

And to a place I come where nothing shines.

I understood that to this mode of pain are doomed the sinners of the carnal kind, who o'er their reason let their impulse reign.

If i thought i was replying to someone who would every return to the world, this flame would cease it's flickering. But since no one has returned from these depths alive, if what I've heard is true, I will answer you without fear of infamy.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

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

The wish to hear such baseness is degrading.

You did thirst for blood, and with blood I fill you

You were not made to live like brute beasts,
but to pursue virtue and knowledge

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.

CANTO I IN the midway of this our mortal life,

Behave like men, and not like witless sheep...

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

As fall the light autumnal leaves, one still the other following, till the bough strews all its honors on the earth below.

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

Do ye not comprehend that we are worms born to bring forth the angelic butterfly that flieth unto judgment without screen?

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

Even as he who glories while he gains will, when the time has come to tally loss, lament with every thought and turn despondent,

Let them cease, then, to insult the Roman empire, who pretend that they are the sons of the Church; when they see that Christ, the bridegroom of the Church, sanctioned the Roman empire at the beginning and at the end of His warfare on earth. And now I think that I have made it sufficiently clear that it was by right that the Romans acquired to themselves the empire of the world.

Oh happy people, oh Ausonia, how glorious hadst thou been, if either he, that weakener of thine empire, had never been born, or if his own pious intention had never deceived him?

He tells his reader that writings should be expounded in four senses. The first

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

Love rules me. It determines what I ask.

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

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

So bitter is it, death is little more;

That sacred army, that Christ espoused with his blood, displayed itself in the form of a white rose, but the Angel other, that sees and sings the glory, of him who inspires it with love, as it flies, and sings the excellence that has made it as it is, descended continually into the great flower, lovely with so many petals, and climbed again to where its love lives ever, like a swarm of bees, that now plunges into the flowers, and now returns, to where their labour is turned to sweetness.
Their faces were all of living flame, their wings of gold, and the rest of them so white that snow never reached that limit. When they dropped into the flower, they offered, to tier on tier, the peace and ardour that they acquired with beating wings: and the presence of such a vast flying swarm between the flower and what was beyond it, did not dilute the vision or the splendour: because the Divine Light so penetrates the Universe, to the measure of its Value, that nothing has the power to prevent it. This kingdom, safe and happy, crowded with ancient peoples and the new, had sight and Love all turned towards one point.

It is his fate to enter every door. This has been willed where what is willed must be, and is not yours to question. Say no more.

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

You shall leave everything you love.

Love, which absolves no one beloved from loving,
seized me so strongly with his charm that,
as you see, it has not left me yet.
Love brought us to one death.

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

For she doth make my veins and pulses tremble.

God's greatest gift to man
In all the bounty He was moved to make
Throughout creation-the one gift the most
Close to his goodness and the one He calls
Most precious-is free will.

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

Well, if the kid screws up, then I'll just have to kick his ass.

And here Dante describes an evidently spherical world ... "The lamp of the world [the sun] rises to mortals through different passages; but through that which joins four circles with three crosses [the position of the rising sun at the vernal equinox] it issues with a better course and conjoined with better stars, and tempers and stamps the wax of the world more after its own fashion. Although such an outlet had made morning there and evening here, and all the hemisphere there was bright, and the other dark ... "

Because your question searches for deep meaning,
I shall explain in simple words

Deed done is well begun.