Quotes from book
Inferno

Dante Alighieri Original title Inferno (Italian, 1304)

Inferno is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Inferno tells the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is the "realm ... of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen". As an allegory, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul toward God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin.


Dante Alighieri photo
Dante Alighieri photo

“Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.”

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

Dante Alighieri photo

“A thing done has an end!”

Canto XXVIII, line 107 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Dante Alighieri photo

“Necessity brings him here, not pleasure.”

Canto XII, line 87 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Dante Alighieri photo

“O Sun, that healest all distempered vision,
Thou dost content me so, when thou resolvest,
That doubting pleases me no less than knowing!”

Canto XI, lines 91–93 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Dante Alighieri photo

“For all the gold that is beneath the moon,
Or ever has been, of these weary souls
Could never make a single one repose.”

Canto VII, lines 64–66 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Dante Alighieri photo

“To be rude to him was courtesy.”

Canto XXXIII, line 150 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Dante Alighieri photo
Dante Alighieri photo

“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.”

Canto I, lines 1–3 (tr. Mandelbaum).
Longfellow's translation:
: Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straight-forward pathway had been lost.
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Dante Alighieri photo

“This miserable state
is borne by the wretched souls of those
who lived without disgrace and without praise.”

Canto III, lines 34–36 (tr. John D. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Dante Alighieri photo

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

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

Dante Alighieri photo

“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

Dante Alighieri photo

“Hope nevermore to look upon the heavens;
I come to lead you to the other shore,
To the eternal shades in heat and frost.”

Canto III, lines 85–87 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Dante Alighieri photo

“I wept not, I within so turned to stone.”

Canto XXXIII, line 49 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Dante Alighieri photo
Dante Alighieri photo

“He listens well who takes notes.”

Canto XV, line 99 (tr. Clive James).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Dante Alighieri photo

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

Henry Powell Spring in 1944; popularized by John F. Kennedy misquoting Dante (24 June 1963) http://www.bartleby.com/73/1211.html. Dante placed those who "non furon ribelli né fur fedeli" [were neither for nor against God] in a special region near the mouth of Hell; the lowest part of Hell, a lake of ice, was for traitors.
According to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx President Kennedy got his facts wrong. Dante never made this statement. The closest to what President Kennedy meant is in the Inferno where the souls in the ante-room of hell, who "lived without disgrace and without praise," and the coward angels, who did not rebel but did not resist the cohorts of Lucifer, are condemned to continually chase a banner that is forever changing course while being stung by wasps and horseflies.
See Canticle I (Inferno), Canto 3, vv 35-42 for the notion of neutrality and where JFK might have paraphrased from.
Misattributed

Dante Alighieri photo

“I looked, and I beheld the shade of him
Who made through cowardice the great refusal.”

Canto III, lines 59–60 (tr. Longfellow).
The decision of Pope Celestine V to abdicate the Papacy and allow Dante's enemy, Pope Boniface VIII, to gain power.
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Dante Alighieri photo

“Day was departing, and the embrowned air
Released the animals that are on earth
From their fatigues.”

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

Dante Alighieri photo

“No and Yes within my head contend.”

Canto VIII, lines 111 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

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