Dante Alighieri quotes

Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, / ché la diritta via era smarrita.

Through me the way is to the city dolent; through me the way is to eternal dole; through me the way among the people lost. Justice incited my sublime Creator; created me divine Omnipotence, the highest Wisdom and the primal Love. All hope abandon, ye who enter in!

Per me si va ne la città dolente, / per me si va ne l'etterno dolore, / per me si va tra la perduta gente. / Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore; / fecemi la divina podestate, / la somma sapïenza e 'l primo amore. / Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.

Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving, seized me with pleasure of this man so strongly, that, as thou seest, it doth not yet desert me.

Amor, ch'a nullo amato amar perdona, / mi prese del costui piacer sì forte, / che, come vedi, ancor non m'abbandona.

There is no greater sorrow than to be mindful of the happy time in misery.

Nessun maggior dolore / che ricordarsi del tempo felice / ne la miseria.

Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it. That day no farther did we read therein.

Galeotto fu 'l libro e chi lo scrisse: / quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante.

Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang; ye were not made to live like unto brutes, but for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.

Considerate la vostra semenza: / fatti non foste a viver come bruti, / ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.

Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.

E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.

Pure and disposed to mount unto the stars.

puro e disposto a salire a le stelle.

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.

ma già volgeva il mio disio e 'l velle, / sì come rota ch'igualmente è mossa, / l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle.

Thou shalt abandon everything beloved most tenderly, and this the arrow is which first the bow of banishment shoots forth. Thou shalt have proof how savoureth of salt the bread of others, and how hard a road the going down and up another's stairs.

Tu lascerai ogne cosa diletta / più caramente; e questo è quello strale / che l'arco de lo essilio pria saetta. / Tu proverai sì come sa di sale / lo pane altrui, e come è duro calle / lo scendere e 'l salir per l'altrui scale.

In that part of the book of my memory before the which is little that can be read, there is a rubric, saying, Incipit Vita Nova.

In quella parte del libro de la mia memoria, dinanzi a la quale poco si potrebbe leggere, si trova una rubrica, la quale dice: Incipit vita nova.

As the Philosopher says in the beginning of the first Philosophy, “All men naturally desire Knowledge.”

Sì come dice lo Filosofo nel principio de la Prima Filosofia, tutti li uomini naturalmente desiderano di sapere.

Oh, blessed are those few who sit at that table where the Bread of Angels is eaten, and wretched those who can feed only as the Sheep.

Oh beati quelli pochi che seggiono a quella mensa dove lo pane de li angeli si manuca! e miseri quelli che con le pecore hanno comune cibo!

I have gone through almost all the land in which this language lives—a pilgrim, almost a mendicant—showing forth against my will the wound of Fortune.

Per le parti quasi tutte a le quali questa lingua si stende, peregrino, quasi mendicando, sono andato, mostrando contra mia voglia la piaga de la fortuna.

Truly I have been a ship without a sail and without a rudder, borne to divers ports and lands and shores by the dry wind which blows from doleful poverty.

Veramente io sono stato legno sanza vela e sanza governo, portato a diversi porti e foci e liti dal vento secco che vapora la dolorosa povertade.

This will be that new Light, that new Sun, which shall rise when the sun of this our day shall set, and shall give light to those who are in darkness and in gloom because the sun of this our day gives light to them no more.

Questo sarà luce nuova, sole nuovo, lo quale surgerà là dove l’usato tramonterà, e darà lume a coloro che sono in tenebre e in oscuritade per lo usato sole che a loro non luce.

I desire not only to show the budding promise, but also to bear fruit for the general good, and to set forth truths by others unattempted.

Three great questions are asked concerning it. First, there is the doubt and the question, is it necessary for the welfare of the world? Secondly, did the Roman people take to itself by right the office of Monarchy? And thirdly, does the authority of Monarchy come from God directly, or only from some other minister or vicar of God?

Therefore man had need of two guides for his life, as he had a twofold end in life; whereof one is the Supreme Pontiff, to lead mankind to eternal life, according to the things revealed to us; and the other is the Emperor, to guide mankind to happiness in this world, in accordance with the teaching of philosophy.

That in this little plot of earth belonging to mortal men, life may pass in freedom and with peace.

Let, therefore, Cæsar be reverent to Peter, as the first-born son should be reverent to his father, that he may be illuminated with the light of his father's grace, and so may be stronger to lighten the world over which he has been placed by Him alone, who is the ruler of all things spiritual as well as temporal.

Since we find that no one before us has written anything at all on the art of eloquence in the vernacular…

We call vernacular speech the speech we take in without any rule, by imitating our nurses.

Of these two, the nobler is the vernacular.

But we, whose homeland is the world as the sea is for fish, though we drank from the Arno before we had teeth, and love Florence so much that for loving her we suffer exile unjustly, rest the shoulders of our judgement on reason rather than on feeling.