50+ Dante's Inferno Quotes From The Epic Divine Comedy Poem

Dante's 'Inferno' ends with the words, 'Thence we came forth to behold the stars' as it signifies his journey to the next book of the series 'Purgatorio' and then 'Paradiso'.

Dante's 'Inferno' is about Dante's journey in hell where he was guided by another poet, Virgil. Dante has called him 'master', 'leader' throughout the poem.

The message the poet has tried to convey through 'Inferno' is that no human being can be without temptation. And thus, all are to be subjects of punishment in hell and eternal pain. But temptations again is a choice and if one can avoid it, their reward can be heaven. Read up on the 'Inferno' quotes from our collection to learn more about this divine poem. The eternal words in this poem show both hope, pain, life, and the hope and fear of the lost and found. It has emerged to be a favorite book of eternal love, life, and hope. The message might also be to abandon all sins as the boat traveling through the forest signifies the suffering of life that the lost people in hell face.

If you like Dante's 'Inferno' quotes go check out 'Paradise Lost' quotes and Virgil quotes.

‍

Here are some of the most famous quotes from the 'Inferno' poem, such as Dante's 'Inferno' Virgil quotes and more.

1. "Then I uprose, showing myself provided

Better with breath than I did feel myself,

And said: 'Go on, for I am strong and bold'."

- Canto XXIV, Dante Alighieri.

2. "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'."

- Canto XIV, Dante Alighieri.

3. "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'."

- Canto XVI, Dante Alighieri.

4. "With weeping and with wailing,

Thou spirit maledict, do thou remain;

For thee I know, though thou art all defiled."

- Canto VIII, Dante Alighieri.

5. "They turned to me with signs of salutation,

And on beholding this, my Master smiled;

And more of honor still, much more, they did me,

In that they made me one of their own band;

So that the sixth was I, ‘mid so much wit."

- Canto IV, Dante Alighieri.

6. "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."

- Canto I, Dante Alighieri.

7. "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."

- Canto VI, Dante Alighieri.

8. "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'."

- Canto IV, Dante Alighieri.

9. "Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost."

- Canto I, Dante Alighieri.

10. "Here all suspicion needs must be abandoned,

All cowardice must needs be here extinct."

- Canto III, Dante Alighieri.

11. "Heaven have I power to lock and to unlock,

As thou dost know; therefore the keys are two,

The which my predecessor held not dear."

- Canto XXVII, Dante Alighieri.

12. "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."

- Canto XXVII, Dante Alighieri.

13. "Before me there were no created things,

Only eterne, and I eternal last.

All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"

- Canto III, Dante Alighieri.

14. "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."

- Canto III, Dante Alighieri.

15. "There is no greater sorrow

Than to be mindful of the happy time In misery."

- Canto V, Dante Alighieri.

16. "Their cemetery have upon this side

With Epicurus all his followers,

Who with the body mortal make the soul;"

- Canto X, Dante Alighieri.

17. "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."

- Canto XXI, Dante Alighieri.

18. "They all were shouting, 'At Philippo Argenti!'

And that exasperate spirit Florentine

Turned round upon himself with his own teeth."

- Canto VIII, Dante Alighieri.

19. "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."

- Canto II, Dante Alighieri.

20. "Came hither downward from my blessed seat,

Confiding in thy dignified discourse,

Which honors thee, and those who’ve listened to it."

- Canto II, Dante Alighieri.

21. "E‘end such made me that beast withoutene peace,

Which, coming on against me by degrees,

Thrust me back thither where the sun is silent."

- Canto I, Dante Alighieri.

These are a few of the quotes on sin and sinners that the poet has mentioned in the poem, 'Inferno'.

22. "The Man who without sin was born and lived.

Thou hast thy feet upon the little sphere

Which makes the other face of the Judecca."

- Canto XXXIV, Dante Alighieri.

23. "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."

- Canto XXXIV, Dante Alighieri.

24. "His mouth uplifted from his grim repast,

That sinner, wiping it upon the hair

Of the same head that he behind had wasted."

- Canto XXXIII, Dante Alighieri.

25. "He weepeth here the silver of the French;

'I saw,' thus canst thou phrase it, 'him of Duera

There where the sinners stand out in the cold'."

- Canto XXXII, Dante Alighieri.

26. "The rigid justice that chastises me

Draweth occasion from the place in which

I sinned, to put the more my sighs in flight."

- Canto XXX, Dante Alighieri.

27. "And the sinner, who had heard, dissembled not,

But unto me directed mind and face,

And with a melancholy shame was painted."

- Canto XXIV, Dante Alighieri.

28. "So upon every side the sinners stood;

But ever as Barbariccia near them came,

Thus underneath the boiling they withdrew."

- Canto XXII, Dante Alighieri.

29. "Ah, how ferocious was he in his aspect!

And how he seemed to me in action ruthless,

With open wings and light upon his feet!

His shoulders, which sharp-pointed were and high,

A sinner did encumber with both haunches,

And he held clutched the sinews of the feet."

- Canto XXI, Dante Alighieri.

30. "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."

- Canto XV, Dante Alighieri.

31. "As from the Bulicamë springs the brooklet,

The sinful women later share among them,

So downward through the sand it went its way."

- Canto XIV, Dante Alighieri.

32. "They are among the blacker souls;

A different sin downweighs them to the bottom;

If thou so far descendest, thou canst see them."

- Canto VI, Dante Alighieri.

33. "You citizens were wont to call me Ciacco;

For the pernicious sin of gluttony

I, as thou seest, am battered by this rain."

- Canto VI, Dante Alighieri.

34. "That they sinned not; and if they merit had,

‘Tis not enough, because they had not baptism,

Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest."

- Canto IV, Dante Alighieri.

35. "Thus sometimes, to alleviate his pain,

One of the sinners would display his back,

And in less time conceal it than it lightens."

- Canto XXII, Dante Alighieri.

36. "Thou shalt see Lethe, but outside this moat,

There where the souls repair to lave themselves,

When sin repented of has been removed."

- Canto XIV, Dante Alighieri

Below are a few quotes on God and Justice that the poet has mentioned in 'Inferno'.

37. "Down tow‘rds the bottom, where the ministress

Of the high Lord, Justice infallible,

Punishes forgers, which she here records."

- Canto XXIX, Dante Alighieri.

38. "But because fraud is man’s peculiar vice,

More it displeaseth God; and so stand lowest

The fraudulent, and greater dole assails them."

- Canto XI, Dante Alighieri.

39. "Clearly wilt thou perceive why from these felons

They separated are, and why less wroth

Justice divine doth smite them with its hammer."

- Canto XI, Dante Alighieri.

40. "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."

- Canto VIII, Dante Alighieri.

41. "God in his mercy such created me

That misery of yours attains me not,

Nor any flame assails me of this burning."

- Canto II, Dante Alighieri.

42. "'My son,' the courteous Master said to me,

'All those who perish in the wrath of God

Here meet together out of every land;

And ready are they to pass o‘er the river,

Because celestial Justice spurs them on,

So that their fear is turned into desire.'"

- Canto III, Dante Alighieri.

43. "Thereafter all together they withdrew,

Bitterly weeping, to the accursed shore,

Which waiteth every man who fears not God."

- Canto III, Dante Alighieri.

44. "Wisdom supreme, O how great art thou showest

In heaven, in earth, and in the evil world,

And with what justice doth thy power distribute!"

- Canto XIX, Dante Alighieri.

45. "God they blasphemed and their progenitors,

The human race, the place, the time, the seed

Of their engendering and of their birth!"

- Canto III, Dante Alighieri.

46. "Then came we to the confine, where disparted

The second round is from the third, and where

A horrible form of Justice is beheld."

- Canto XIV, Dante Alighieri.

47. "Commingled are they with that caitiff choir

Of Angels, who have not rebellious been,

Nor faithful were to God, but were for self."

- Canto III, Dante Alighieri.

48. "Justice incited my sublime Creator;

Created me divine Omnipotence,

The highest Wisdom and the primal Love."

- Canto III, Dante Alighieri.

49. "Justice of God, ah! who heaps up so many

New toils and sufferings as I beheld?

And why doth our transgression waste us so?"

- Canto VII, Dante Alighieri.

Lastly, we have quotes on hell from the 'Inferno'. You will love these words from the great Dante.

50. "Say where they are, and cause that I may know them;

For great desire constraineth me to learn

If Heaven doth sweeten them, or Hell envenom."

- Canto VI, Dante Alighieri.

51. "Now will I have thee know, the other time

I here descended to the nether Hell,

This precipice had not yet fallen down."

- Canto XII, Dante Alighieri.

52. "Through every city shall he hunt her down,

Until he shall have driven her back to Hell,

There from whence envy first did let her loose."

- Canto I, Dante Alighieri.

53. "And said the Guide: 'One am I who descends Down with this living man from cliff to cliff,

And I intend to show Hell unto him.'"

- Canto XXIX, Dante Alighieri.

54. "Me, who am dead, behoves it to conduct him

Down here through Hell, from circle unto circle;

And this is true as that I speak to thee."

- Canto XXVIII, Dante Alighieri.

55. "Through all the sombre circles of this Hell,

Spirit I saw not against God so proud,

Not he who fell at Thebes down from the walls!"

- Canto XXV, Dante Alighieri.

56. "Let the renown of us thy mind incline

To tell us who thou art, who thus securely

Thy living feet dost move along through Hell."

- Canto XVI, Dante Alighieri.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Dante's 'Inferno' quotes then why not take a look at Robert Browning quotes, or Carl Sandburg quotes.

‍