If you, free as you are of every weighthad stayed below, then that would be as strangeas living flame on earth remaining still.”And then she turned her gaze up toward the heavens.

And he began, “What chance or destinyhas brought you here before your final day?And who is he who leads your pilgrimage?””Up there in life beneath the quiet starsI lost my way,” I answered, “in a...

Thy soul is by vile fear assailed

All hope abandon, ye who enter here!

I am the way into the city of woe,I am the way into eternal pain,I am the way to go among the lost.Justice caused my high architect to move,Divine omnipotence created me,The highest wisdom, and...

The weapons of divine justice are blunted by the confession and sorrow of the offender.

I love to doubt as well as know.

The path to paradise begins in hell.

Pape Satan, Pape Satan, Aleppe!

A mighty flame follows a tiny spark.

Follow your own star!

The mind which is created quick to love, is responsive to everything that is pleasing, soon as by pleasure it is awakened into activity. Your apprehensive faculty draws an impression from a real object, and...

This is Nimrod, because of whose vile plan the world no longer speaks a single tongue.

You shall find out how salt is the taste of another man’s bread, and how hard is the way up and down another man’s stairs.

Heaven wheels above you, displaying to you her eternal glories, and still your eyes are on the ground

There is no greater sorrowthan thinking back upon a happy timein misery–

Those ancients who in poetry presented the golden age, who sang its happy state,perhaps, in their Parnassus, dreamt this place. Here, mankind’s root was innocent; and herewere every fruit and never-ending spring; these streams–the nectar...

Consider your origins: you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.

And all the while one spirit uttered this,The other one did weep so, that, for pity,I swooned away as if I had been dying,And fell, even as a dead body falls.

If the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought.

Worldly fame is but a breath of wind that blows now this way, and now that, and changes name as it changes direction.

That infinite and indescribable good which is there above races as swiftly to love as a ray of light to a bright body.It gives of itself according to the ardor it finds, so that as...

God’s greatest gift to manIn all the bounty He was moved to makeThroughout creation-the one gift the mostClose to his goodness and the one He callsMost precious-is free will.

Beauty awakens the soul to act.

Be as a tower firmly set; Shakes not its top for any blast that blows.

It is necessity and not pleasure that compels us. [Italian: Necessita c’induce, e non diletto.]

I, answering in the end, began: ‘Alas,how many yearning thoughts, what great desire,have lead them through such sorrow to their fate?

The sad souls of those who lived without blame and without praise.

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.

My course is set for an uncharted sea.

Do not be afraid; our fateCannot be taken from us; it is a gift.

The more perfect a thing is, the more susceptible to good and bad treatment it is.

There is no greater sorrowThan to recall a happy timeWhen miserable.

Fate’s arrow, when expected, travels slow.

No one thinks of how much blood it costs.

In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.

Haste denies all acts their dignity.

Heat cannot be separated from fire, or beauty from The Eternal.

At this high moment, ability failed my capacity to describe.

Love, that moves the sun and the other stars

He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it.

Will cannot be quenched against its will.

Amor, ch’al cor gentile ratto s’apprendeprese costui de la bella personache mi fu tolta; e ‘l modo ancor m’offende.Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona,Mi prese del costui piacer sì forte,Che, come vedi, ancor non...

The secret of getting things done is to act!

All those who perish in the wrath of God Here meet together out of every land;And ready are they to pass o’er the river, Because celestial Justice spurs them on, So that their fear is...

My son, you’ve seen the temporary fireand the eternal fire; you have reachedthe place past which my powers cannot see.I’ve brought you here through intellect and art;from now on, let your pleasure be your guide;you’re...

He listens well who takes notes.

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

The customs and fashions of men change like leaves on the bough, some of which go and others come.

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.