Wide World of Quotes > Dante Alighieri Quotes


Dante Alighieri
Italian poet
(1265-1321)



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Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
Midway along the path of our life
-- Divina commedia, "Inferno"; translated into English as: The Divine Comedy

Per me si va nella città dolente,
Per me si va nell' eterno dolore,
Per me si va tra la perduta gente...
Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate!

Through me is the way to the sorrowful city,
Through me is the way to eternal suffering,
Through me is the way to join the lost people...
Abandon all hope, you who enter!
-- Inscription at the entrance to Hell, in: Divina commedia, "Inferno"; translated into English as: The Divine Comedy

Non è il mondan romore altro che un fiato
de vento, ch'or vien quinci ed or qien quindi,
e muta nome perchè muta lato.

The reputation the world bestows
is like the wind, that shifts now here now there,
its name changed with the quarter whence it blows.
-- Divina commedia, "Purgatorio"; translated into English as: The Divine Comedy

Beatrice is gone up into high heaven,
The kingdom where the angels are at peace;
And lives with them; and to her friends is dead.
Not by the frost of winter was she driven
Away, like others; nor by summer-heats;
But through a perfect gentleness, instead.
For from the lamp of her meek lowlihead
Such an exceeding glory went up hence
    That it woke wonder in the Eternal Sire,
    Until a sweet desire
Entererd Him for that lovely excellence,
  So that He bade her to Himself aspire:
counting this weary and most evil place
Unworthy of a thing so full of grace.
-- La Vita Nuova; translated into English in 1910 as The New Life


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The selection of the above quotes and the writing of the accompanying notes was performed by the author David Paul Wagner.

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