“Weeping itself there does not let them weep,
And grief that finds a barrier in the eyes
Turns itself inward to increase the anguish.”
Canto XXXIII, lines 94–96 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno
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Dante Alighieri105
Italian poet 1265–1321Related quotes
“To weep is to make less the depth of grief.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet
Source: King Henry VI, Part 3
“And for her eyes: what could such eyes do there
But weep, and weep, that they were born so fair?”
"Lamia", Pt. I, l. 61
Poems (1820)
Ja'far al-Sadiq (702–765) Muslim religious person
Ja‘far ibn Muhammad ibn Qulawayh, Kāmil al-Ziyarat, p. 119
Religous Wisdom
“If you wish me to weep, you yourself
Must first feel grief.”
Si vis me flere, dolendum est
primum ipsi tibi.
Source: Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (c. 18 BC), Line 102
“Her eyes brimful to the verge of weeping.”
Ad primos turgentia lumina fletus.
Gaius Valerius Flaccus book Argonautica
Source: Argonautica, Book II, Line 464
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 790–794 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)