Dante Alighieri: Trending quotes

“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.”

Canto XX, lines 136–138 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

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)

“Heaven, to keep its beauty,
cast them out, but even Hell itself would not receive them
for fear the wicked there might glory over them.”

“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.”

Canto III, lines 40–42 (tr. Mark Musa).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

“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?”

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

“Abandon all hope, you who enter here.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

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)

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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