Quotes from book
Paradiso

Paradiso
Dante Alighieri Original title Paradiso (Italian, 1321)

Paradiso is the third and final part of Dante's Divine Comedy, following the Inferno and the Purgatorio. It is an allegory telling of Dante's journey through Heaven, guided by Beatrice, who symbolises theology. In the poem, Paradise is depicted as a series of concentric spheres surrounding the Earth, consisting of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, the Primum Mobile and finally, the Empyrean. It was written in the early 14th century. Allegorically, the poem represents the soul's ascent to God.


Dante Alighieri photo

“And his will is our peace; this is the sea
To which is moving onward whatsoever
It doth create, and all that nature makes.”

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

Dante Alighieri photo

“I saw within Its depth how It conceives
all things in a single volume bound by Love,
of which the universe is the scattered leaves.”

Canto XXXIII, lines 85–87 (tr. Ciardi).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Dante Alighieri photo

“The sword above here smiteth not in haste
Nor tardily, howe'er it seem to him
Who fearing or desiring waits for it.”

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

Dante Alighieri photo

“A great flame follows a little spark.”

Canto I, line 34 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Dante Alighieri photo

“With the colour that paints the morning and evening clouds that face the sun I saw then the whole heaven suffused.”

Canto XXVII, lines 28–30 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Dante Alighieri photo

“The experience of this sweet life.”

Canto XX, lines 47–48 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Dante Alighieri photo

“The night that hides things from us.”

Canto XXIII, line 3 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Dante Alighieri photo

“From that point
Dependent is the heaven and nature all.”

Canto XXVIII, lines 41–42 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Dante Alighieri photo
Dante Alighieri photo

“The use of men is like a leaf
On bough, which goeth and another cometh.”

Canto XXVI, lines 137–138 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Dante Alighieri photo

“And sweet to us is such a deprivation,
Because our good in this good is made perfect,
That whatsoe'er God wills, we also will.”

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

Dante Alighieri photo

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

Dante Alighieri photo
Dante Alighieri photo

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

Dante Alighieri photo

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

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

Dante Alighieri photo

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

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

Dante Alighieri photo

“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.”

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.

Dante Alighieri photo

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

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

Dante Alighieri photo

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