The Divine Comedy

But here I can’t be still; and by the lines of this my Comedy, reader, I swear- and may my verse find favor for long years.

Dante Alighieri

you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.

Consider your origins

Here one must leave behind all hesitation; here every cowardice must meet its death.

Dante Alighieri

Here sighs and lamentations and loud cries were echoing across the starless air, so that, as soon as I set out, I wept.

Dante Alighieri

Moving again, I tried the lonely slope- my firm foot was always the one below.

Dante Alighieri

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

Dante Alighieri

Silently, alone, no one escorting us, we made our way- one went before, one after- as Friars Minor when the walk together.

Dante Alighieri

The day was now departing; the dark air released the living beings of the earth from work and weariness.

Dante Alighieri

The time was the beginning of the morning; the sun was rising now in fellowship with the same stars that had escorted it when Divine Love first moved those things of beauty.

Dante Alighieri

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