“To the right hand I turned, and fixed my mind
Upon the other pole, and saw four stars
Ne'er seen before save by the primal people.”

—  Dante Alighieri, book Purgatorio

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

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "To the right hand I turned, and fixed my mind Upon the other pole, and saw four stars Ne'er seen before save by the p…" by Dante Alighieri?
Dante Alighieri photo
Dante Alighieri105
Italian poet 1265–1321

Related quotes

Francis Bacon photo

“Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Truth
Essays (1625)

A.E. Housman photo

“Stars, I have seen them fall,
But when they drop and die
No star is lost at all
From all the star-sown sky.
The toil of all that be
Helps not the primal fault;
It rains into the sea
And still the sea is salt.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

Source: A Shropshire Lad

William Shakespeare photo

“Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

H. Rider Haggard photo

“There are things and there are faces which, when felt or seen for the first time, stamp themselves upon the mind like a sun image on a sensitized plate and there remain unalterably fixed.”

H. Rider Haggard (1856–1925) English writer of adventure novels

Colonel Quaritch, V. C.: A Tale of Country Life (1888), CHAPTER I, HAROLD QUARITCH MEDITATES

Galileo Galilei photo

“Surely it is a great thing to increase the numerous host of fixed stars previously visible to the unaided vision, adding countless more which have never before been seen, exposing these plainly to the eye in numbers ten times exceeding the old and familiar stars.”

Galileo Galilei book Sidereus Nuncius

Translation by Stillman Drake in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957)
Sidereus Nuncius (Venice, 1609)

“I always said that in a country where a legislature, its sessions limited by statute, could alter reality by turning back the clock (I actually saw this done, once, with a long pole pushing on the hour hand), any travesty was possible. I see nothing lately to prove me wrong.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Tastes Like Chicken".

Larry Niven photo

“A thrint was master over every intelligent beast. This was the Powergiver’s primal decree, made before he made the stars. So said all of the twelve thrintun religions, though they fought insanely over other matters.”

Larry Niven book World of Ptavvs

Source: World of Ptavvs (1966), p. 85

Conrad Aiken photo

“Walk with me world, upon my right hand walk,
speak to me Babel, that I may strive to assemble
of all these syllables a single word
before the purpose of speech is gone.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

"This image or another," The Nation (28 December 1932)

Woodrow Wilson photo

“As a beauty I'm not a great star,
There are others more handsome by far,
But my face, I don't mind it,
Because I'm behind it —
Tis the people in front that I jar.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Reported as a misattribution in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 131-32; Boller and George note that Wilson was so fond of quoting this limerick that others thought he had written it. In fact, it was written by a minor poet named Anthony Euwer, and conveyed to Wilson by his daughter Eleanor.
Misattributed

Related topics