60+ Best Dante’s Inferno Quotes: Exclusive Selection

Inferno is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Inferno describes Dante’s journey through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. Profoundly inspirational Dante’s Inferno quotes will brighten up your day and make you feel ready to take on anything.

If you’re searching for most famous lines from books that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of profound Great Expectations quotes, amazing A Tale of Two Cities quotes and top Christmas Carol quotes.

Famous Dante’s Inferno Quotes

Then I uprose, showing myself provided Better with breath than I did feel myself, And said Go on, for I am strong and bold. Dante Alighieri

In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost. Dante Alighieri

Then did my Leader speak with such great force, That I had never heard him speak so loud O Capaneus, in that is not extinguished Thine arrogance, thou punished art the more; Not any torment, saving thine own rage Would be unto thy fury pain complete. Dante Alighieri

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

My terror overmastered my good will, Which made me greedy of embracing them. Then I began Sorrow and not disdain Did your condition fix within me so, That tardily it wholly is stripped off. Dante Alighieri

They yearn for what they fear for. Dante Alighieri

With weeping and with wailing, Thou spirit maledict, do thou remain; For thee I know, though thou art all defiled. Dante Alighieri

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

Thou art my master, and my author thou, Thou art alone the one from whom I took The beautiful style that has done honor to me. Dante Alighieri

From there we came outside and saw the stars. Dante Alighieri

But tell me who thou art, that in so doleful A place art put, and in such punishment, If some are greater, none is so displeasing. Dante Alighieri

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

Let us go on, for the long way impels us. Thus he went in, and thus he made me enter The foremost circle that surrounds the abyss. Dante Alighieri

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

Here all suspicion needs must be abandoned, All cowardice must needs be here extinct. Dante Alighieri

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

But for the High Priest, whom may ill betide, Who put me back into my former sins; And how and wherefore I will have thee hear. Dante Alighieri

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

Through me the way is to the city dolent; Through me the way is to eternal dole; Through me the way among the people lost. Dante Alighieri

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

There is no greater sorrow Than to be mindful of the happy time In misery. Dante Alighieri

The poets leave hell and again behold the stars. Dante Alighieri

He hurled him down, and over the hard crag Turned round, and never was a mastiff loosened In so much hurry to pursue a thief. Dante Alighieri

One ought to be afraid of nothing other then things possessed of power to do us harm, but things innoucuous need not be feared. Dante Alighieri

They all were shouting, At Philippo Argenti! And that exasperate spirit Florentine Turned round upon himself with his own teeth. Dante Alighieri

As phantoms frighten beasts when shadows fall. Dante Alighieri

Beatrice am I, who do bid thee go; I come from there, where I would fain return; Love moved me, which compelleth me to speak. Dante Alighieri

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

Came hither downward from my blessed seat, Confiding in thy dignified discourse, Which honors thee, and those who’ve listened to it. Dante Alighieri

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

At every mouth he with his teeth was crunching A sinner, in the manner of a brake, So that he three of them tormented thus. Dante Alighieri

For pride and avarice and envy are the three fierce sparks that set all hearts ablaze. Dante Alighieri

His mouth uplifted from his grim repast, That sinner, wiping it upon the hair Of the same head that he behind had wasted. Dante Alighieri

That which had pleased me once, troubled by spirit. Dante Alighieri

The rigid justice that chastises me Draweth occasion from the place in which I sinned, to put the more my sighs in flight. Dante Alighieri

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

And the sinner, who had heard, dissembled not, But unto me directed mind and face, And with a melancholy shame was painted. Dante Alighieri

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

So upon every side the sinners stood; But ever as Barbariccia near them came, Thus underneath the boiling they withdrew. Dante Alighieri

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

Know then, in sum, that all of them were clerks, And men of letters great and of great fame, In the world tainted with the selfsame sin. Dante Alighieri

And now, I pray you, tell me who you are do not be harder than I’ve been with you that in the world your name may still endure. Dante Alighieri

As from the Bulicamë springs the brooklet, The sinful women later share among them, So downward through the sand it went its way. Dante Alighieri

So many times a man’s thoughts will waver, That it turns him back from honored paths, As false sight turns a beast, when he is afraid. Dante Alighieri

You citizens were wont to call me Ciacco; For the pernicious sin of gluttony I, as thou seest, am battered by this rain. Dante Alighieri

And when he had put his hand on mine with a cheerful look, wherefrom I took courage, he brought me within to the secret things. Here sighs, laments, and deep wailings were resounding through the starless air; wherefore at first I wept thereat. Strange tongues, horrible utterances, words of woe, accents of anger, voices high and faint, and sounds of hands with them, were making a tumult which whirls always in that air forever dark, like the sand when the whirlwind breathes. Dante Alighieri

Thus sometimes, to alleviate his pain, One of the sinners would display his back, And in less time conceal it than it lightens. Dante Alighieri

Lying in a featherbed will not bring you 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

Thou shalt see Lethe, but outside this moat, There where the souls repair to lave themselves, When sin repented of has been removed. Dante Alighieri

On march the banners of the King of Hell. Dante Alighieri

But because fraud is man’s peculiar vice, More it displeaseth God; and so stand lowest The fraudulent, and greater dole assails them. Dante Alighieri

And now I fell as bodies fall,for dead. Dante Alighieri

Clearly wilt thou perceive why from these felons They separated are, and why less wroth Justice divine doth smite them with its hammer. Dante Alighieri

The wish to hear such baseness is degrading. Dante Alighieri

A little after that, I saw such havoc Made of him by the people of the mire, That still I praise and thank my God for it. Dante Alighieri

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

God in his mercy such created me That misery of yours attains me not, Nor any flame assails me of this burning. Dante Alighieri

Through me you go to the grief wracked city; Through me you go to everlasting pain; Through me you go a pass among lost souls. Justice inspired my exalted Creator I am a creature of the Holiest Power, of Wisdom in the Highest and of Primal Love. Nothing till I was made was made, only eternal beings. And I endure eternally. Surrender as you enter, every hope you have. Dante Alighieri