Dante Alighieri Quotes - Page 7

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

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

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

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

And here Dante describes an evidently spherical world... "The lamp of the world [the sun] rises to mortals through different passages; but through that which joins four circles with three crosses [the position of the rising sun at the vernal equinox] it issues with a better course and conjoined with better stars, and tempers and stamps the wax of the world more after its own fashion. Although such an outlet had made morning there and evening here, and all the hemisphere there was bright, and the other dark..."

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

In judgement be ye not too confident, Even as a man who will appraise his corn When standing in a field, ere it is ripe.

He who shall never be divided from me kissed my mouth all trembling.

O you, who in some pretty boat, Eager to listen, have been following Behind my ship, that singing sails along Turn back to look again upon your own shores; Tempt not the deep, lest unawares, In losing me, you yourselves might be lost. The sea I sail has never yet been passed; Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo, And Muses nine point out to me the Bears. You other few who have neck uplifted Betimes to the bread of angels upon Which one lives and does not grow sated, Well may you launch your vessel Upon the deep sea.

To run over better waters the little vessel of my genius now hoists her sails, as she leaves behind her a sea so cruel.

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 charity spreads farther the eternal good increases upon it,and the more souls there are who love, up there, the more there are to love well, and the more love they reflect to each other, as in a mirror.

Do ye not comprehend that we are worms born to bring forth the angelic butterfly that flieth unto judgment without screen?

Give unto us this day the daily manna Without which, in this desert where we dwell, He must go backward who would most advance.

I was so full of sleep at the time that I left the true way.

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

Thou shall know by experience how salt the savor is of others' bread, and how sad a path it is to climb and descend another's stairs.

Small projects need much more help than great.

Go forth and preach impostures to the world, But give them truth to build on.

The man who lies asleep will never waken fame.

I am made of God, through his Grace. Such that your misery touches me not, Nor does flame of that burning assail me.

There is a place in Hell called the Malebolge.

Curb your talent lest it speed where virtue does not guide.

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.

As the geometer intently seeks to square the circle, but he cannot reach, through thought on thought, the principle he needs, so I searched that strange sight.

From there we came outside and saw the stars