Quotes about dante Quotes
16 quotes
"And you, beloved children, whose lot it is to promote learning under the magisterium of the Church, continue as you are doing to love and tend the noble poet whom We do not hesitate to call the most eloquent singer of the Christian idea."
"Dante does not come before us as a large catholic mind; rather as a narrow, and even sectarian mind: it is partly the fruit of his age and position, but partly too of his own nature. His greatness has, in all senses, concentred itself into fiery emphasis and depth. He is world-great not because he is world-wide, but because he is world-deep. Through all objects he pierces as it were down into the heart of Being. I know nothing so intense as Dante."
"I wanted my illustrations for the Dante to be like the faint markings of moisture in a divine cheese. This explains their variegated aspect of butterflies' wings. Mysticism is cheese; Christ is cheese, better still, mountains of cheese!"
"Gilson criticizes attempts to trace Dante's position back to Thomism or Averroism. For St. Thomas, every hierarchy of dignity is at the same time a hierarchy of jurisdiction, while for Dante—except for God—a hierarchy of dignity is never the foundation of a hierarchy of jurisdiction, and this corresponds to Dante's specific philosophical problem, which is not so much to define the essence of philosophy as to determine functions and jurisdictions. The principle governing this determination is absolutely irreconcilable with Thomism. St. Thomas knows only one ultimate end: eternal bliss, which can only be attained through the Church; moreover, the spirituality of the ultimate end implies that between temporal and spiritual power there is a hierarchical subordination of the means to the end. For Dante, on the other hand, man can obtain, through the exercise of political virtues, a human happiness completely distinct from heavenly bliss, even if the latter represents a higher end. The thesis of the “duo ultima” legitimizes the complete distinction between the political order and the religious order, which is equally universal to that of the Church, but autonomous and pursuing an end of earthly happiness."
"For us Anishinaabe, Biskaabiiyang is a specific term that means “returning to the woods,” because we’re woodland peoples. For example, I grew up growing my “three sisters”—that is, corn, beans, and squash—along the edge of the forest, using what people now call sylvan culture or permaculture. It’s curious how this counters the perspective of classical authors like Dante in early modern Europe or, later, Edmund Spenser, an important Renaissance poet, who view the woods as this terrifying presence. Why is this decolonizing? Because through boarding schools and many other colonial experiences, that fear of the woods creeps in."
"Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them; there is no third."
"Dante as a poet performs miracles in some of the openings of his lyrics or some of his verses in the Commedia. In an age of convention and formalism he went to Virgil to school; in an age when nothing gave reason to hope for the appearance of a masterpiece of form and structure, he produced such a masterpiece. His creative work is immensely superior in merit to his theorizing, but even these show how, in spite of the limitations of contemporary philosophy and rhetoric he was able to slip through the meshes of the network which encircled him, and to bring the vernacular poetry of Italy, when it was still in its infancy, to heights of perfection and finish that have seldom been equalled and never surpassed."
"I would like to add my voice to those who consider Dante Alighieri an artist of the greatest universal esteem, who through his immortal works still has much to say and offer to those who desire to travel the way to true knowledge, to the authentic discovery of self, of the world, of life's profound and transcendent meaning. ... The Comedy can be read as a great itinerary, rather as a true pilgrimage, both personal and interior, as well as communal, ecclesial, social and historic. ... Dante is...a prophet of hope, a herald of humanity's possible redemption and liberation, of profound change in every man and woman, of all of humanity."
"Dante was the first to sing of heaven and of hell, not as the dreams of mythological fiction, but as the objects of a real faith. He was the first who lanched from this promontory on which we stand, into the vast immensity of the universe, traversed the abyss amidst demons and infernal tortures, and mounting afterwards through angelic hosts and undiscovered worlds, gazed with stedfast eye upon the glories of the Highest... Dante was the Columbus who discovered this new world of poesy... Dante probably surpassed even Homer himself."
"Dante's corpus as a whole is in certain respects like a testament to the closing medieval age; it shows what the Western world would have been had it not broken from its tradition."
"If instilling the fear of hell is a form of “child abuse” perhaps Dante’s “Comedy,” with its graphic depictions of hell, should be forbidden to minors in Japan, and Japanese travel agents should not take families with minors to the famous Medieval Cemetery of or to countless European cathedrals whose frescos or paintings show how devils will torment the sinners in the afterlife (Buddhist depictions of are not less terrifying, by the way)."
"I love Dante almost as much as the Bible. He is my spiritual food, the rest is ballast."
"Dante has not deigned to take his inspiration from any other. He has wished to be himself, himself alone; in a word, to create. He has occupied a vast space, and has filled it with the superiority of a sublime mind. He is diverse, strong, and gracious. He has imagination, warmth, and enthusiasm. He makes his reader tremble, shed tears, feel the thrill of honor in a way that is the height of art. Severe and menacing, he has terrible imprecations for crime, scourgings for vice, sorrow for misfortune. As a citizen, affected by the laws of the republic, he thunders against its oppressors, but he is always ready to excuse his native city. Florence is ever to him his sweet, beloved country, dear to his heart. I am envious for my dear France, that she has never produced a rival to Dante; that this Colossus has not had his equal among us. No, there is no reputation which can be compared to his."
"His very words are instinct with spirit; each is as a spark, a burning atom of inextinguishable thought; and many yet lie covered in the ashes of their birth, and pregnant with the lightning which has yet found no conductor."
"That great genius conceived, in his vast imagination, the mysteries of the invisible creation, and unveiled them to the eyes of the astonished world."
"Sa réputation s'affermira toujours, parce qu'on ne le lit guère. II y a de lui une vingtaine de traits qu'on sait par cœur: cela suffit pour s'épargner la peine d'examiner le reste."