Dante Alighieri Quotes

from this you surely understand that love
must be the seed in you of every virtue
and of every deed that merits punishment.

[Sonetto XI]
Ne li occhi porta la mia donna Amore,
per che si fa gentil ciò ch’ella mira;
ov’ella passa, ogn’om ver lei si gira,
e cui saluta fa tremar lo core,

sì che, bassando il viso, tutto smore,
e d’ogni suo difetto allor sospira:
fugge dinanzi a lei superbia ed ira.
Aiutatemi, donne, farle onore.

Ogne dolcezza, ogne pensero umile
nasce nel core a chi parlar la sente,
ond’è laudato chi prima la vide.

Quel ch’ella par quando un poco sorride,
non si pò dicer né tenere a mente,
sì è novo miracolo e gentile.

You did thirst for blood, and with blood I fill you

There, pride, avarice, and envy are the tongues men know and heed, a Babel of depsair

taught me that the great secret of Dante’s masterpiece lay in the handling of the verse, which always moved forward even in the most intensely compressed of episodes.

No one on earth was ever as quick to search for their good, or run from harm,

…I am left with less
than one drop of my blood that does not tremble.
I recognize the the signs of the old flame.

Look hard, all you whose minds are sound and sane, and wonder at the meaning lying veiled beyond the curtain of this alien verse.

I say most truly that at that moment the spirit of life, which hath its dwelling in the secretest chamber of the heart, began to tremble so violently that the least pulses of my body shook therewith; and in trembling it said these words: Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi, (“Here is a deity stronger than I ; who, coming, shall rule over me.”)

Follow your constellation and you cannot fail to reach your port of glory

Oh blind, oh ignorant, self-seeking cupidity which spurs as so in the short mortal life and steeps as through all eternity.

what a joy- to look back at a path we've cilmbed

Non fa scienza,
sanza lo ritenere, avere inteso

So, too (as I have heard the story told), the spear that both Achilles and his father bore would cause a wound that spear alone could cure.

They had their faces twisted toward their haunches and found it necessary to walk backward, because they could not see ahead of them. ...And since he wanted so to see ahead, he looks behind and walks a backward path.