Top 380 Dante Alighieri Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “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

152. “I am searching for that which every man seeks-peace and rest.”

— Dante Alighieri

153. “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

154. “The mouse had fallen in with evil cats.”

— Dante Alighieri

155. “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

156. “As flowerlets drooped and puckered in the night turn up to the returning sun and spread their petals wide on his new warmth and light-just so my wilted spirits rose again and such a heat of zeal surged through my veins that I was born anew.”

— Dante Alighieri

157. “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

158. “Love rules me. It determines what I ask.”

— Dante Alighieri

159. “Love kindled by virtue always kindles another, provided that its flame appear outwardly.”

— Dante Alighieri

160. “It bugs the crap out of me when somebody talks more than I do.”

— Dante Alighieri

161. “What is a smile but the coruscation of the joy of the soul, like the outward shining of an inward light.”

— Dante Alighieri

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

— Dante Alighieri

163. “A man’s renown is like the hue of grass, Which comes and goes.”

— Dante Alighieri

164. “I come from a place, I long to return to:.”

— Dante Alighieri

165. “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

166. “Open thy mind; take in what I explain and keep it there; because to understand is not to know, if thou dost not retain...”

— Dante Alighieri

167. “When he saw me weeping, he answered: ‘You must go another road, if you wish to escape this savage place. This creature, that distresses you, allows no man to cross her path, but obstructs him, to destroy him, and she has so vicious and perverse a nature, that she never sates her greedy appetite, and after food is hungrier than before.”

— Dante Alighieri

168. “A prayer may chance to rise From one whose heart lives in the grace of God. A prayer from any other is unheeded.”

— Dante Alighieri

169. “Three dispositions adverse to Heaven’s still, – Incontinence, malice, and mad brutishness.”

— Dante Alighieri

170. “Well do I see how the Eternal Ray, which, once seen, kindles love forevermore, already shines on you. If on your way some other thing seduce your love, my brother, it can only be a trace, misunderstood, of this, which you see shining through the other.”

— Dante Alighieri

171. “Many have justice in their hearts, but slowly it is let fly, for it comes not without council to the bow.”

— Dante Alighieri

172. “I learnt that the carnal sinners are condemned to these torments, they who subject their reason to their lust.”

— Dante Alighieri

173. “Haste denies all acts their dignity.”

— Dante Alighieri

174. “Often a retrospect delights the mind.”

— Dante Alighieri

175. “He did what any hero must: set sail. But you, you turn back. Tell me why.”

— Dante Alighieri

176. “Mankind, why do ye set your hearts on things That, of necessity, may not be shared?”

— Dante Alighieri

177. “We forget what we have heard if we do not write it down.”

— Dante Alighieri

178. “Hasty opinion too often points the wrong way, and then affection for one’s own opinion binds up the intellect.”

— Dante Alighieri

179. “Look hard, all you whose minds are sound and sane, and wonder at the meaning lying veiled beyond the curtain of this alien verse.”

— Dante Alighieri

180. “From now on you will have to cast off sloth in this way,” said my master, “for one does not gain fame sitting on-down cushions, or while under coverlets; and whoever consumes his life without fame leaves a mark of himself on earth like smoke in the air or foam in water. And therefore stand up; conquer your panting with the spirit that conquers in every battle, if it does not let the heavy body crush it down.”

— Dante Alighieri

181. “It follows, then, that the only way to get into Hell is to insist upon it. One must deliberately exclude himself from grace by hardening his heart against it. Hell is what the damned have actively and insistently wished for.”

— Dante Alighieri

182. “Hell exists from within.”

— Dante Alighieri

183. “These innumerable seekers of safety first, and last, who take no risk either of suffering in a good cause or of scandal in a bad one, are here manifestly, nakedly, that which they were in life, the waste and rubbish of the universe, of no account to the world, unfit for Heaven and barely admitted to Hell. They have no need to die, for they ‘never were alive’.”

— Dante Alighieri

184. “Now you can plainly see how deeply hidden truth is from scrutinists who would insist that every love is, in itself, praiseworthy; and they are led to error by the matter of love, because it may seem-always-good; but not each seal is fine, although the wax is.”

— Dante Alighieri

185. “In la palude va c’ha nome Stige.”

— Dante Alighieri

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

— Dante Alighieri

187. “Stand firm as the tower that never shakes its top whatever wind may blow.”

— Dante Alighieri

188. “In each fire there is a spirit; Each one is wrapped in what is burning him.”

— Dante Alighieri

189. “No sadness is greater than in misery to rehearse memories of joy.”

— Dante Alighieri

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

— Dante Alighieri

191. “That with him were, what time the Love Divine.”

— Dante Alighieri

192. “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

193. “There is no greater sorrow then to recall our times of joy in wretchedness.”

— Dante Alighieri

194. “You did thirst for blood, and with blood I fill you.”

— Dante Alighieri

195. “This sorrow weighs upon the melancholy souls of those who lived without infamy or praise.”

— Dante Alighieri

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

— Dante Alighieri

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

— Dante Alighieri

198. “Behold a God more powerful than I who comes to rule over me.”

— Dante Alighieri

199. “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

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

— Dante Alighieri