Dante (born c. May 21–June 20, 1265, Florence [Italy]—died September 13/14, 1321, Ravenna) Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia (The Divine Comedy).Dante Alighieri, most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante, was an Italian poet, writer, and philosopher.

Dante Alighieri Quotes

1. “Nature is the art of God.”
— Dante Alighieri

2. “The path to paradise begins in hell.”
— Dante Alighieri

3. “The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.”
— Dante Alighieri

4. “All hope abandon, ye who enter here!”
— Dante Alighieri

5. “The secret of getting things done is to act!”
— Dante Alighieri

6. “Follow your own star!”
— Dante Alighieri

7. “Follow your path, and let the people talk.”
— Dante Alighieri

8. “From a little spark may burst a flame.”
— Dante Alighieri

9. “In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.”
— Dante Alighieri

10. “Beauty awakens the soul to act.”
— Dante Alighieri

11. “Consider your origins: you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.”
— Dante Alighieri

12. “Because your question searches for deep meaning, I shall explain in simple words.”
— Dante Alighieri

13. “Where the way is hardest, there go thou; Follow your own path and let people talk.”
— Dante Alighieri

14. “The devil is not as black as he is painted.”
— Dante Alighieri

15. “Three things remain with us from paradise: stars, flowers and children.”
— Dante Alighieri

16. “The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time.”
— Dante Alighieri

17. “If your world isn’t right, the cause is in you.”
— Dante Alighieri

18. “Do not be afraid; our fate Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.”
— Dante Alighieri

19. “If you give people light, they will find their own way.”
— Dante Alighieri

20. “Considerate la vostra semenza: fatti non foste viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.”
— Dante Alighieri

21. “Love insists the loved loves back.”
— Dante Alighieri

22. “Eternal love made me.”
— Dante Alighieri

23. “Before me things created were none, save things Eternal, and eternal I endure. All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”
— Dante Alighieri

24. “Do not desert me when I need you most. And if we can’t go on together, let’s retrace our steps as quickly as we can.”
— Dante Alighieri

25. “But already my desire and my will were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed, by the Love which moves the sun and the other stars.”
— Dante Alighieri

26. “My course is set for an uncharted sea.”
— Dante Alighieri

27. “From there we came outside and saw the stars.”
— Dante Alighieri

28. “A mighty flame followeth a tiny spark.”
— Dante Alighieri

29. “He is not always at ease who laughs.”
— Dante Alighieri

30. “I did not die, and yet I lost life’s breath.”
— Dante Alighieri

31. “I love to doubt as well as know.”
— Dante Alighieri

32. “He loves but little who can say and count in words, how much he loves.”
— Dante Alighieri

33. “Consider that this day ne’er dawns again.”
— Dante Alighieri

34. “Everywhere is here and every when is now.”
— Dante Alighieri

35. “The man who lies asleep will never waken fame, and his desire and all his life drift past him like a dream, and the traces of his memory fade from time like smoke in air, or ripples on a stream.”
— Dante Alighieri

36. “Come, follow me, and leave the world to its babblings.”
— Dante Alighieri

37. “He listens well who takes notes.”
— Dante Alighieri

38. “If thou follow thy star, thou canst not fail of glorious heaven.”
— Dante Alighieri

39. “I made my own house be my gallows.”
— Dante Alighieri

40. “He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it.”
— Dante Alighieri

41. “There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.”
— Dante Alighieri

42. “I wept not, so to stone within I grew.”
— Dante Alighieri

43. “In His will, our peace.”
— Dante Alighieri

44. “Knowledge comes Of learning well retain’d, unfruitful else.”
— Dante Alighieri

45. “Love is the source of every virtue in you and of every deed which deserves punishment.”
— Dante Alighieri

46. “But the stars that marked our starting fall away. We must go deeper into greater pain, for it is not permitted that we stay.”
— Dante Alighieri

47. “A fair request should be followed by the deed in silence.”
— Dante Alighieri

48. “You sure know how to throw a party! No food, no drinks, and the only babe just left.”
— Dante Alighieri

49. “Thus you may understand that love alone is the true seed of every merit in you, and of all acts for which you must atone.”
— Dante Alighieri

50. “They yearn for what they fear for.”
— Dante Alighieri

51. “Blessed are the peacemakers, For they have freed themselves from sinful wrath.”
— Dante Alighieri

52. “Here let dead poetry rise once more to life.”
— Dante Alighieri

53. “Through me you go into a city of weeping; through me you go into eternal pain; through me you go amongst the lost people.”
— Dante Alighieri

54. “We have no hope and yet we live in longing.”
— Dante Alighieri

55. “I care not where my body may take me as long as my soul is embarked on a meaningful journey.”
— Dante Alighieri

56. “A fight every now and again does make life more interesting. Don’t ya think?”
— Dante Alighieri

57. “And we came forth to contemplate the stars.”
— Dante Alighieri

58. “Pride, envy, avarice – these are the sparks have set on fire the hearts of all men.”
— Dante Alighieri

59. “Be like a solid tower whose brave height remains unmoved by all the winds that blow; the man who lets his thoughts be turned aside by one thing or another, will lose sight of his true goal, his mind sapped of its strength.”
— Dante Alighieri

60. “Hope not ever to see Heaven. I have come to lead you to the other shore; into eternal darkness; into fire and into ice.”
— Dante Alighieri

61. “But if, as morning rises, dreams are true.”
— Dante Alighieri

62. “When I had journeyed half of our life’s way, I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does not stray.”
— Dante Alighieri

63. “The man who lies asleep will never waken fame.”
— Dante Alighieri

64. “Justice divine has weighed: the doom is clear. All hope renounce, ye lost, who enter here.”
— Dante Alighieri

65. “No sorrow is deeper than the remembrance of happiness when in misery.”
— Dante Alighieri

66. “Now you know how much my love for you burns deep in me when I forget about our emptiness, and deal with shadows as with solid things.”
— Dante Alighieri

67. “Into the eternal darkness, into fire and into ice.”
— Dante Alighieri

68. “For she doth make my veins and pulses tremble.”
— Dante Alighieri

69. “It was the hour of morning, when the sun mounts with those stars that shone with it when God’s own love first set in motion those fair things.”
— Dante Alighieri

70. “I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightfoward pathway had been lost. Ah me! How hard a thing is to say, what was this forest savage, rough, and stern, which in the very thought renews the fear. So bitter is it, death is little more…”
— Dante Alighieri

71. “The only fit reply to a fit request is silence and the fact.”
— Dante Alighieri

72. “There is no greater pain than to remember, in our present grief, past happiness.”
— Dante Alighieri

73. “At grief so deep the tongue must wag in vain; the language of our sense and memory lacks the vocabulary of such pain.”
— Dante Alighieri

74. “Lost are we, and are only so far punished, That without hope we live on in desire.”
— Dante Alighieri

75. “O human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?”
— Dante Alighieri

76. “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood.”
— Dante Alighieri

77. “Conscience, that boon companion who sets a man free under the strong breastplate of innocence, that bids him on and fear not.”
— Dante Alighieri

78. “No one thinks of how much blood it costs.”
— Dante Alighieri

79. “Heat cannot be separated from fire, or beauty from The Eternal.”
— Dante Alighieri

80. “The heaven that rolls around cries aloud to you while it displays its eternal beauties, and yet your eyes are fixed upon the earth alone.”
— Dante Alighieri

81. “Amor, ch’a nullo amato amar perdona.”
— Dante Alighieri

82. “Abandon every hope, you who enter.”
— Dante Alighieri

83. “The whole universe is but the footprint of the Divine goodness.”
— Dante Alighieri

84. “The well heeded well heard.”
— Dante Alighieri

85. “Love can move the Sun and the stars.”
— Dante Alighieri

86. “Open your mind to what I shall disclose, and hold it fast within you; he who hears, but does not hold what he has heard, learns nothing. Beatrice – Canto V 40-42.”
— Dante Alighieri

87. “He is, most of all, l’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.”
— Dante Alighieri

88. “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.”
— Dante Alighieri

89. “A backward glance can often lift the heart.”
— Dante Alighieri

90. “Oh blind, oh ignorant, self-seeking cupidity whcih spurs as so in the short mortal life and steeps as through all eternity.”
— Dante Alighieri

91. “As phantoms frighten beasts when shadows fall.”
— Dante Alighieri

92. “The heavens call to you, and circle about you, displaying to you their eternal splendors, and your eye gazes only to earth.”
— Dante Alighieri

93. “Nothing which is harmonized by the bond of the Muse can be changed from its own to another language without destroying its sweetness.”
— Dante Alighieri

94. “If a thief helps a poor man out of the spoils of his thieving, we must not call that charity.”
— Dante Alighieri

95. “Astrology, the noblest of sciences.”
— Dante Alighieri

96. “Consider the sea’s listless chime: Time’s self it is, made audible.”
— Dante Alighieri

97. “We are but a day in this world, and in that day the fashion is changed a thousand times: all seek liberty, yet all deprive themselves of it.”
— Dante Alighieri

98. “When we encountered a band of souls coming along the barrier, and each was gazing at us in the evening people gaze at one another under the new moon.”
— Dante Alighieri

99. “Deed done is well begun.”
— Dante Alighieri

100. “I’m beginning to think I’ve got rotten luck with women.”
— Dante Alighieri

101. “The more a thing is perfect, the more it feels pleasure and likewise pain.”
— Dante Alighieri

102. “Mentre che la speranza ha fior del verde.”
— Dante Alighieri

103. “He who know most grieves most for wasted time.”
— Dante Alighieri

104. “The love that moves the sun and the other stars.”
— Dante Alighieri

105. “There is a gentle thought that often springs to life in me, because it speaks of you.”
— Dante Alighieri

106. “Here my powers rest from their high fantasy, but already I could feel my being turned- instinct and intellect balanced equally. as in a wheel whose motion nothing jars- by the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars.”
— Dante Alighieri

107. “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.”
— Dante Alighieri

108. “Midway upon the journey of our life.”
— Dante Alighieri

109. “In the midway of this our mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood, astray, Gone from the path direct.”
— Dante Alighieri

110. “Be as a tower firmly set; Shakes not its top for any blast that blows.”
— Dante Alighieri

111. “It is necessity and not pleasure that compels us.”
— Dante Alighieri

112. “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.”
— Dante Alighieri

113. “I am made of God, through his Grace. Such that your misery touches me not, Nor does flame of that burning assail me.”
— Dante Alighieri

114. “Behave like men, and not like witless sheep…”
— Dante Alighieri

115. “He who shall never be divided from me kissed my mouth all trembling.”
— Dante Alighieri

116. “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
— Dante Alighieri

117. “E chi avesse voluto conoscere Amore, fare lo potea mirando lo tremare de li occhi miei.”
— Dante Alighieri

118. “I felt for the tormented whirlwinds Damned for their carnal sins Committed when they let their passions rule their reason.”
— Dante Alighieri

119. “Art, as far as it is able, follows nature, as a pupil imitates his master; thus your art must be, as it were, God’s grandchild.”
— Dante Alighieri

120. “Fate’s arrow, when expected, travels slow.”
— Dante Alighieri

121. “Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty. We must recall that the basic principle is freedom of choice, which saying many have on their lips but few in their minds.”
— Dante Alighieri

122. “And to a place I come where nothing shines.”
— Dante Alighieri

123. “Will cannot be quenched against its will.”
— Dante Alighieri

124. “Soon you will be where your own eyes will see the source and cause and give you their own answer to the mystery.”
— Dante Alighieri

125. “My mother used to always tell me that my father was a man who fought for the weak. He had courage and righteous heart. In the name of my father, I will kill Mundus!”
— Dante Alighieri

126. “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.”
— Dante Alighieri

127. “To course across more kindly waters now my talent’s little vessel lifts her sails, leaving behind herself a sea so cruel; and what I sing will be that second kingdom, in which the human soul is cleansed of sin, becoming worthy of ascent to Heaven.”
— Dante Alighieri

128. “A rapid bolt will rend the clouds apart, and every single White be seared by wounds. I tell you this. I want it all to hurt.”
— Dante Alighieri

129. “Wisdom is earned, not given.”
— Dante Alighieri

130. “Infinite goodness has such wide arms.”
— Dante Alighieri

131. “Not one drop of blood is left inside my veins that does not throb: I recognize signs of the ancient flame.”
— Dante Alighieri

132. “Justice does not descend from its own pinnacle.”
— Dante Alighieri

133. “How come I never meet any nice girls?”
— Dante Alighieri

134. “Without hope we live in desire.”
— Dante Alighieri

135. “As one who sees in dreams and wakes to find the emotional impression of his vision still powerful while its parts fade from his mind – Just such am I, having lost nearly all the vision itself, while in my heart I feel the sweetness of it yet distill and fall.”
— Dante Alighieri

136. “I am searching for that which every man seeks-peace and rest.”
— Dante Alighieri

137. “I saw a point that shone with light so keen, the eye that sees it cannot bear its blazing; the star that is for us the smallest one would seem a moon if placed beside this point.”
— Dante Alighieri

138. “All your renown is like the summer flower that blooms and dies; because the sunny glow which brings it forth, soon slays with parching power.”
— Dante Alighieri

139. “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.”
— Dante Alighieri

140. “Love kindled by virtue always kindles another, provided that its flame appear outwardly.”
— Dante Alighieri

141. “It bugs the crap out of me when somebody talks more than I do.”
— Dante Alighieri

142. “A man’s renown is like the hue of grass, Which comes and goes.”
— Dante Alighieri

143. “There is in hell a place stone-built throughout, Called Malebolge, of an iron hue, Like to the wall that circles it about.”
— Dante Alighieri

144. “The human race finds itself in a better situation when it has the higher level of freedom.”
— Dante Alighieri

145. “Lying in a featherbed will bring you no fame, nor staying beneath the quilt, and he who uses up his life without achieving fame leaves no more vestige of himself on Earth than smoke in the air or foam upon the water.”
— Dante Alighieri

146. “You learn by trying, making mistakes, correcting and trying again and again until your reach the desired goal, which is rarely without effort, but is rather a reward for hard work.”
— Dante Alighieri

147. “Through me is the way into the doleful city; through me the way into the eternal pain; through me the way among the people lost. Justice moved my High Maker; Divine Power made me, Wisdom Supreme, and Primal Love. Before me were no things created, but eternal; and eternal I endure: leave all hope, ye that enter.”
— Dante Alighieri

148. “Often a retrospect delights the mind.”
— Dante Alighieri

149. “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate’.”
— Dante Alighieri

150. “Before me there were no created things, Only eternity, and I too, last eternal. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!”
— Dante Alighieri

151. “There is a place in Hell called the Malebolge…”
— Dante Alighieri

152. “Stand firm as the tower that never shakes its top whatever wind may blow.”
— Dante Alighieri

153. “No sadness is greater than in misery to rehearse memories of joy.”
— Dante Alighieri

154. “This mountain is so formed that it is always wearisome when one begins the ascent, but becomes easier the higher one climbs.”
— Dante Alighieri

155. “That with him were, what time the Love Divine.”
— Dante Alighieri

156. “They have no hope of death, and their darkened life is so mean that they are envious of every other fate. Earth allows no mention of them to exist: mercy and justice reject them: let us not talk of them, but look and pass.”
— Dante Alighieri

157. “There is no greater sorrow then to recall our times of joy in wretchedness.”
— Dante Alighieri

158. “In each fire there is a spirit; Each one is wrapped in what is burning him.”
— Dante Alighieri

159. “This sorrow weighs upon the melancholy souls of those who lived without infamy or praise.”
— Dante Alighieri

160. “You did thirst for blood, and with blood I fill you.”
— Dante Alighieri

161. “I know this is a major cultural artifact but it’s bad for the community.”
— Dante Alighieri

162. “The loser, when a game of dice is done, remains behind reviewing every roll sadly, and sadly wiser, and alone.”
— Dante Alighieri

163. “Behold a God more powerful than I who comes to rule over me.”
— Dante Alighieri

164. “For where the instrument of intelligence is added to brute power and evil will, mankind is powerless in its own defense.”
— Dante Alighieri

165. “On march the banners of the King of Hell.”
— Dante Alighieri

166. “Love and the gentle heart are but the same thing.”
— Dante Alighieri

167. “My soul tasted that heavenly food, which gives new appetite while it satiates.”
— Dante Alighieri

168. “The Infinite Goodness has such wide arms that it takes whatever turns to it.”
— Dante Alighieri

169. “Here pity only lives when it is dead – Virgil.”
— Dante Alighieri

170. “Turn around, and keep your eyes closed shut, For if the Gorgon, Medusa, does appear, and you see her, You would never be able to return upward.”
— Dante Alighieri

171. “Come on, shake off the covers of this sloth, for sitting softly cushioned, or tucked in bed, is no way to win fame.”
— Dante Alighieri

172. “Salvation must grow out of understanding, total understanding can follow only from total experience, and experience must be won by the laborious discipline of shaping one’s absolute attention.”
— Dante Alighieri

173. “If the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought.”
— Dante Alighieri

174. “One should only be afraid of those things Which have the power of doing others harm; For the rest, fear not; because they are not fearful.”
— Dante Alighieri

175. “There, pride, avarice, and envy are the tongues men know and heed, a Babel of depsair.”
— Dante Alighieri

176. “You can stay and die or you can walk your ugly ass back through that gate. It’s your call, pal.”
— Dante Alighieri

177. “My thoughts were full of other things When I wandered off the path.”
— Dante Alighieri

178. “I saw within Its depth how It conceives All things in a single volume bound by Love of which the universe is the scattered leaves.”
— Dante Alighieri

179. “Rejoice, Florence, seeing you are so great that over sea and land you flap your wings, and your name is widely known in Hell!”
— Dante Alighieri

180. “So that the Universe felt love, by which, as somebelieve, the world has many times been turned to chaos. And at that moment this ancient rock, here and elsewhere, fell broken into pieces.”
— Dante Alighieri

181. “As fall the light autumnal leaves, one still the other following, till the bough strews all its honors on the earth below.”
— Dante Alighieri

182. “Heaven wheels above you, displaying to you her eternal glories, and still your eyes are on the ground.”
— Dante Alighieri

183. “God is the love that moves the sun and stars.”
— Dante Alighieri

184. “Master,” I said, “when the great clarion fades into the voice of thundering Omniscience, what of these agonies? Will they be the same, or more, or less, after the final sentence?”
— Dante Alighieri

185. “Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur michi.”
— Dante Alighieri

186. “Do ye not comprehend that we are worms born to bring forth the angelic butterfly that flieth unto judgment without screen?”
— Dante Alighieri

187. “I have set foot in that region of life where it is not possible to go with any more intention of returning.”
— Dante Alighieri

188. “If i thought i was replying to someone who would every return to the world, this flame would cease it’s flickering. But since no one has returned from these depths alive, if what I’ve heard is true, I will answer you without fear of infamy.”
— Dante Alighieri

189. “Love, that allows no loved one to be excused from loving, seized me so fiercely with desire for him, it still will not leave me, as you can see. Love led us to one death.”
— Dante Alighieri

190. “As once I loved you in my mortal flesh, without it now I love you still.”
— Dante Alighieri

191. “You shall leave everything you love.”
— Dante Alighieri

192. “No man may be so cursed by priest or pope but what the Eternal Love may still return while any thread of green lives on in hope.”
— Dante Alighieri

193. “The experience of this sweet life.”
— Dante Alighieri

194. “The poets leave hell and again behold the stars.”
— Dante Alighieri

195. “As little flowers, which the chill of night has bent and huddled, when the white sun strikes, grow straight and open fully on their stems, so did I, too, with my exhausted force.”
— Dante Alighieri

196. “The more perfect a thing is, the more susceptible to good and bad treatment it is.”
— Dante Alighieri

197. “Compassion is not a passion; rather a noble disposition of the soul, made ready to receive love, mercy, and other charitable passions.”
— Dante Alighieri

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

199. “Worldly fame is but a breath of wind that blows now this way, and now that, and changes name as it changes direction.”
— Dante Alighieri

200. “A heavy thunder shattered the deep sleep in my head, so that I came to myself, like someone woken by force, and standing up, I moved my eyes, now refreshed, and looked round, steadily, to find out what place I was in. I found myself, in truth, on the brink of the valley of the sad abyss that gathers the thunder of an infinite howling. It was so dark, and deep, and clouded, that I could see nothing by staring into its depths.”
— Dante Alighieri