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Dante Alighieri

b: Florence, Italy, May 27, 1265

d: Ravenna, Italy., Sep 14, 1321

Italian. Poet. Wrote celebrated masterpiece The Divine Comedy, 1307-21.

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"What is it that has caught your interest so and makes you lag behind?" my master asked. "What do you care, if they are whispering? Keep up with me and let the people talk! "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."

...there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.

A fair request should be followed by the deed in silence.

A great flame follows a little spark.

Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here. Italian: Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate.

Another's stairs are, up and down to go.

Avarice, envy, pride, Three fatal sparks, have set the hearts of all On Fire.

Be as a tower firmly set; Shakes not its top for any blast that blows.

Che saziando di se, di se s'asseta.

Consider your breed; you were not made to live like beasts, but to follow virtue and knowledge.

Follow your own star!

For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act?

He listens well who takes notes.

Heat cannot be separated from fire, or beauty from the eternal.

Heaven wheels above you, displaying to you her eternal glories, and still your eyes are on the ground.

How bitter another's bread is, thou shalt know // By tasting it; and how hard to the feet // another's stairs are, up and down to go.

I wept not, so to stone within I grew.

If thou follow thy star, thou canst not fail of a glorious heaven.

In His will is our peace.

In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.

Italian: Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate.

Italian: Questa lor tracotanza non e nuova.

Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate. (Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.) -

My soul tasted that heavenly food, which gives new appetite while it satiates. Italian: L'anima mia gustava di quel cibo, Che saziando di se, di se s'asseta.

Not one drop of blood is left inside my veins that does not throb: I recognize signs of the ancient flame.

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

O dignity of conscience, noble, chaste, how one slight fault can sting you into shame!

O human race born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou fall.

Pride, envy, avarice – these are the sparks have set on fire the souls of man.

The customs and fashions of men change like leaves on the bough, some of which go and others come.

The hottest places in hell are reserved for whose who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.

The more perfect a thing is, the more susceptible to good and bad treatment it is.

The sad souls of those who lived without blame and without praise.

There is no greater grief than to recall a time of happiness when in misery.

There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.

There sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the starless air, so that at first it made me weep; strange tongues, horrible language, words of pain, tones of anger, voices loud and hoarse, and with these the sound of hands, made a tumult which is whirling through that air forever dark, and sand eddies in a whirlwind.

These have not the hope to die.

This audacity of theirs is not new. Italian: Questa lor tracotanza non e nuova.

This miserable state is borne by the wretched souls of those who lived without disgrace and without praise.

This sorrow weighs upon the melancholy souls of those who lived without infamy or praise.
[It., Questo misero modo
Tengon l'anime triste di coloro
Che visser senza infamia e senza lodo.]

Will cannot be quenched against its will.

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

Your earthly fame is but a gust of wind that blows about, shifting this way and that, and as it changes quarter, changes name.