Dante Alighieri Quotes: 105 Quotes Revealing the Timeless Wisdom and Profound Insights of a Great Poet

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De Monarchia

Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri: 105 quotes 233 likes

Famous Dante Alighieri Quotes

“As the thing more perfect is,
The more it feels of pleasure and of pain.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto VI, lines 107–108 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

“She is the sum of nature's universe.
To her perfection all of beauty tends.”

Dante Alighieri book Vita Nuova

Source: La Vita Nuova (1293), Chapter XIV, lines 49–50 (tr. Barbara Reynolds)

“In quella parte del libro de la mia memoria… si trova una rubrica la quale dice: Incipit vita nova.”

Dante Alighieri book Vita Nuova

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.
Source: La Vita Nuova (1293), Chapter I, opening lines (as reported in The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time by Leslie Pockell)

“Ye keep your watch in the eternal day.”
Voi vigilate ne l'etterno die.

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto XXX, line 103 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

“The path to paradise begins in hell.”

Dante Alighieri book La Divina Comedia

Source: The Divine Comedy

“When we understand this we see clearly that the subject round which the alternative senses play must be twofold. And we must therefore consider the subject of this work [the Divine Comedy] as literally understood, and then its subject as allegorically intended. The subject of the whole work, then, taken in the literal sense only is "the state of souls after death" without qualification, for the whole progress of the work hinges on it and about it. Whereas if the work be taken allegorically, the subject is "man as by good or ill deserts, in the exercise of the freedom of his choice, he becomes liable to rewarding or punishing justice."”
Hiis visis, manifestum est quod duplex oportet esse subiectum circa quod currant alterni sensus. Et ideo videndum est de subiecto huius operis, prout ad litteram accipitur; deinde de subiecto, prout allegorice sententiatur. Est ergo subiectum totius operis, litteraliter tantum accepti, status animarum post mortem simpliciter sumptus. Nam de illo et circa illum totius operis versatur processus. Si vero accipiatur opus allegorice, subiectum est homo, prout merendo et demerendo per arbitrii libertatem iustitie premiandi et puniendi obnoxius est.

Dante Alighieri

Letter to Can Grande (Epistle XIII, 23–25), as translated by Charles Singleton in his essay "Two Kinds of Allegory" published in Dante Studies 1 (Harvard University Press, 1954), p. 87.
Epistolae (Letters)

Dante Alighieri Quotes about love

“One day, to pass the time away, we read
of Lancelot—how love had overcome him.
We were alone, and we suspected nothing.
And time and time again that reading led
our eyes to meet, and made our faces pale,
and yet one point alone defeated us.
When we had read how the desired smile
was kissed by one who was so true a lover,
this one, who never shall be parted from me,
while all his body trembled, kissed my mouth.
A Gallehault indeed, that book and he
who wrote it, too; that day we read no more.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto V, lines 127–138 (tr. Mandelbaum).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

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

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto XXII, lines 10–12.
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

“Love and the gracious heart are a single thing…
one can no more be without the other
than the reasoning mind without its reason.”

Dante Alighieri book Vita Nuova

Amore e 'l cor gentil sono una cosa...
e così esser l'un sanza l'altro osa
com'alma razional sanza ragione.
Source: La Vita Nuova (1293), Chapter XVI (tr. Mark Musa)

“The dames and cavaliers, the toils and ease
That filled our souls with love and courtesy,
There where the hearts have so malicious grown!”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto XIV, lines 109–111 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

“Love with delight discourses in my mind
Upon my lady's admirable gifts…
Beyond the range of human intellect.”

Dante Alighieri

Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona
de la mia donna disiosamente...
che lo 'ntelletto sovr'esse disvia.
Trattato Terzo, line 1.
Il Convivio (1304–1307)

“It was now the hour that turns back the longing of seafarers and melts their heart the day they have bidden dear friends farewell and pierces the new traveller with love if he hears in the distance the bell that seems to mourn the dying day.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto VIII, lines 1–6 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Dante Alighieri Quotes about heart

“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 book Purgatorio

Canto IV, lines 133–135 (tr. C. E. Norton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

“Between his legs were hanging down his entrails;
His heart was visible, and the dismal sack
that maketh excrement of what is eaten.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto XXVIII, lines 25–27 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

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

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto VI, lines 74–75 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

“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 book Vita Nuova

ne le braccia avea
madonna involta in un drappo dormendo.
Poi la svegliava, e d'esto core ardendo
lei paventosa umilmente pascea:
appresso gir lo ne vedea piangendo.
Source: La Vita Nuova (1293), Chapter I, First Sonnet (tr. Mark Musa)

“I am he who held both the keys of the heart of Frederick, and who turned them, locking and unlocking so softly.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto XIII, lines 58–60 (tr. C. E. Norton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

“And one his limb transpierced, and one lopped off, should show, it would be nothing to compare with the disgusting mode of the ninth Bolgia. A cask by losing centre-piece or cant was never shattered so, as I saw one rent from the chin to where one breaketh wind. Between his legs were hanging down his entrails; his heart was visible, and the dismal sack that maketh excrement of what is eaten. While I was all absorbed in seeing him, he looked at me, and opened with his hands his bosom, saying: "See now how I rend me; How mutilated, see, is Mahomet; in front of me doth Ali weeping go, cleft in the face from forelock unto chin; and all the others whom thou here beholdest, disseminators of scandal and of schism while living were, and therefore are cleft thus.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto XXVIII
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Dante Alighieri: Trending quotes

“Here sighs and lamentations and loud cries
were echoing across the starless air,
so that, as soon as I set out, I wept.
Strange utterances, horrible pronouncements,
accents of anger, words of suffering,
and voices shrill and faint, and beating hands—
all went to make a tumult that will whirl
forever through that turbid, timeless air,
like sand that eddies when a whirlwind swirls.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto III, lines 22–30 (tr. Mandelbaum).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Suffering , Anger

“Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto XXXIV, line 139 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Star

“La moralitade è bellezza de la filosofia.”

Dante Alighieri

Morality is the beauty of Philosophy.
Trattato Terzo, Ch. 15.
Il Convivio (1304–1307)

Dante Alighieri Quotes

“There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto V, lines 121–123 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Time , Happiness

“Behold a God more powerful than I who comes to rule over me.”
Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi.

Dante Alighieri book Vita Nuova

Source: La Vita Nuova (1293), Chapter I (tr. Barbara Reynolds); of love.

God

“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 book Paradiso

Canto XIX, lines 58–63 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

World , Justice , Sea

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

Dante Alighieri book Paradiso

Canto I, lines 1–3 (tr. C. E. Norton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Universe , Parting

“Now the kind of philosophy under which we proceed in the whole and in the part is moral philosophy or ethics; because the whole was undertaken not for speculation but for practice.”
Genus vero philosophie, sub quo hic in toto et parte proceditur, est morale negotium, sive ethica; quia non ad speculandum, sed ad opus inventum est totum et pars.

Dante Alighieri

Letter to Can Grande (Epistle XIII, 40), as translated by Charles Latham in A Translation of Dante's Eleven Letters (1891), Letter XI, §16, p. 199.
Epistolae (Letters)

Parting

“And just as he who, with exhausted breath,
having escaped from the sea to shore,
turns to the perilous waters and gazes.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto I, lines 22–24 (tr. Mandelbaum).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Water , Sea

“My maker was divine authority.”
Fecemi la divina potestate.

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto III, line 5 (tr. Mandelbaum).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

“"'Vexilla Regis prodeunt Inferni'
Towards us; therefore look in front of thee,"
My Master said, "if thou discernest him."”
"Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni verso di noi; però dinanzi mira," disse 'l maestro mio, "se tu 'l discerni."

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto XXXIV, lines 1–3 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

“For in every action what is primarily intended by the doer, whether he acts from natural necessity or out of free will, it is the disclosure of his own image. Hence it comes about that every doer, in so far as he does, takes delight in doing; since everything that is desires its own being, and since in action the being of the doer is somehow intensified, delight necessarily follows... Thus, nothing acts unless [by acting] it makes patent its latent self.”

Dante Alighieri book De Monarchia

Libri iii, Caput XIII, (XV.) emendati Johann Heinrich F. Karl Witte (1874) p. 25. https://www.google.com/books/edition/De_monarchia_libri_iii_emendati_per_C_Wi/_RhcAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA25&printsec=frontcover Translation as quoted by Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (1958) p. 175. https://archive.org/details/humancondition0000aren/page/175/mode/1up
De Monarchia (1312-1313)
Original: (la) Nam in omni actione principaliter intenditur ab agente, sive necessitate naturae, sive voluntarie agat, propriam similitudinem explicare, unde fit, quod omne agens, in quantum huiusmodi, delectatur; quia, quum omne quod est appetat suum esse, ac in agendo agentis esse quodammodo amplietur, sequiturde necessitate delectatio... Nihil igitur agit, nisi tale existens, quale patiens fieri debet...

Self-confidence , Making love , Nature

“As the thing more perfect is, the more it feels of pleasure and of pain.”

Dante Alighieri book La Divina Comedia

Source: The Divine Comedy (Božská komedie)

“But now was turning my desire and will,
Even as a wheel that equally is moved,
The Love which moves the sun and the other stars.”

Dante Alighieri book Paradiso

Canto XXXIII, closing lines, as translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso
Context: As the geometrician, who endeavours
To square the circle, and discovers not,
By taking thought, the principle he wants,Even such was I at that new apparition;
I wished to see how the image to the circle
Conformed itself, and how it there finds place;But my own wings were not enough for this,
Had it not been that then my mind there smote
A flash of lightning, wherein came its wish. Here vigour failed the lofty fantasy:
But now was turning my desire and will,
Even as a wheel that equally is moved, The Love which moves the sun and the other stars.

Love , Star , Sun

“Do you not know that we are worms and born
To form the angelic butterfly that soars,
Without defenses, to confront His judgment?”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto X, lines 121–129 (tr. Mandelbaum).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio
Context: O Christians, arrogant, exhausted, wretched,
Whose intellects are sick and cannot see,
Who place your confidence in backward steps,
Do you not know that we are worms and born
To form the angelic butterfly that soars,
Without defenses, to confront His judgment?
Why does your mind presume to flight when you
Are still like the imperfect grub, the worm
Before it has attained its final form?

Angels

“To a greater power and to a better nature you, free, are subject, and that creates the mind in you which the heavens have not in their charge. Therefore if the present world goes astray, in you is the cause, in you let it be sought.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto XVI, lines 79–83 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

World , Nature

“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 book Inferno

Canto XXVII, lines 61–66 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

World , Fear

“Not only thy benignity gives succour
To him who asketh it, but oftentimes
Forerunneth of its own accord the asking.”

Dante Alighieri book Paradiso

Canto XXXIII, lines 16–18 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

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

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto XII, lines 95–96 (tr. C. E. Norton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Flying

“Consider your origin;
you were not born to live like brutes,
but to follow virtue and knowledge.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto XXVI, lines 118–120.
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Knowledge

“That your art follows her so far as it can, as the disciple does the master, so that your art is as it were grandchild of God.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto XI, lines 103–105 (tr. Charles Eliot Norton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

God , Art

“You dull your own perceptions
with false imaginings and do not grasp
what would be clear but for your preconceptions.”

Dante Alighieri book Paradiso

Canto I, lines 88–90 (tr. Ciardi).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Imagination , Falseness

“He goes seeking liberty, which is so dear, as he knows who gives his life for it.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto I, lines 71–72 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Life

“For top of judgment doth not vail itself,
Because the fire of love fulfils at once
What he must satisfy who here installs him.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto VI, lines 37–39 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Love

“It hither, thither, downward, upward, drives them.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto V, line 43 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

“Worldly renown is naught but a breath of wind, which now comes this way and now comes that, and changes name because it changes quarter.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto XI, lines 100–102 (tr. C. E. Norton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Way , Change

“If thou art, Reader, slow now to believe
What I shall say, it will no marvel be,
For I who saw it hardly can admit it.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto XXV, lines 46–48 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Art

“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 book Purgatorio

Canto XXX, lines 118–120 (tr. C. E. Norton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

“Do not rest in so profound a doubt except she tell it thee, who shall be a light between truth and intellect. I know not if thou understand: I speak of Beatrice.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto VI, lines 43–46 (tr. Carlyle-Wicksteed).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Truth , Understanding , Light

“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 book Vita Nuova

Source: La Vita Nuova (1293), Chapter I, opening lines (as reported in The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time by Leslie Pockell)

Life , Books , Appearance , Memory

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

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto I, lines 1–3 (tr. C. E. Norton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Water , Sea

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

Dante Alighieri book Paradiso

Canto XVII, lines 58–60 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Way

“I came into a place void of all light,
which bellows like the sea in tempest,
when it is combated by warring winds.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto V, lines 28–30 (tr. Charles S. Singleton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

War , Light , Sea

“Like the lark that soars in the air, first singing, then silent, content with the last sweetness that satiates it, such seemed to me that image, the imprint of the Eternal Pleasure.”

Dante Alighieri book Paradiso

Canto XX, lines 73–77 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Pleasure , Singing

“Abandon all hope, you who enter here.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto III, line 9.
Often quoted with the translated form "Abandon hope all ye who enter here". The word "all" modifies hope, not those who enter: "ogni speranza" means "all hope".
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Hope

“Now who art thou, that on the bench wouldst sit
In judgment at a thousand miles away,
With the short vision of a single span?”

Dante Alighieri book Paradiso

Canto XIX, lines 79–81 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Art

“As sheep come issuing forth from out the fold
By ones and twos and threes, and the others stand
Timidly, holding down their eyes and nostrils,
And what the foremost does the others do,
Huddling themselves against her, if she stop,
Simple and quiet and the wherefore know not.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto III, lines 79–84 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio