Quotes from Dante Alighieri

Because there is no man who can be true and just judge of himself, so much will self-love deceive him.

The day that man allows true love to appear, those things which are well made will fall into cofusion and will overturn everything we believe to be right and true.

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.

Conscience, that boon companion who sets a man free under the strong breastplate of innocence, that bids him on and fear not.

If a thief helps a poor man out of the spoils of his thieving, we must not call that charity.

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

O foolish anxiety of wretched man, how inconclusive are the arguments which make thee beat thy wings below!

The man who lies asleep will never waken fame.

Thy soul is by vile fear assailed, which oft so overcasts a man, that he recoils from noblest resolution, like a beast at some false semblance in the twilight gloom.

Fame is not won on downy plumes nor under canopies; the man who consumes his days without obtaining it leaves such mark of himself on earth as smoke in air or foam on water.

O conscience, upright and stainless, how bitter a sting to thee is a little fault!

The purpose of the whole [the Comedy] and of this portion [the Paradiso] is to remove those who are living in this life from the state of wretchedness, and to lead them to the state of blessedness.

Beauty awakens the soul to act.

Will cannot be quenched against its will.

Sta come torre ferma, che non crolla Giammai la cima per soffiar de' venti. Be steadfast as a tower that doth not bend its stately summit to the tempest's shock.

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.

...Everything that is, desires to be. As we act, we unfold our being. Enjoyment naturally follows, for a thing desired always brings delight.

Oh foolish desires of mortals! How weak are the reasons that lead us to not take off our flight from the ground.

If thou follow thy star, thou canst not fail of glorious heaven.

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

They yearn for what they fear for.

My soul tasted that heavenly food, which gives new appetite while it satiates.

The human race finds itself in a better situation when it has the higher level of freedom.

I love to doubt as well as know.