“Those ancients who in poetry presented the golden age, who sang its happy state,perhaps, in their Parnassus, dreamt this place. Here, mankind's root was innocent; and herewere every fruit and never-ending spring; these streams--the nectar of which poets sing.”
“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”
“The man who lies asleep will never waken fame, and his desire and all his life drift past him like a dream, and the traces of his memory fade from time like smoke in air, or ripples on a stream.”
“So that the Universe felt love,by which, as somebelieve,the world has many times been turned to chaos.And at that moment this ancient rock,here and elsewhere, fell broken into pieces.”
“All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”
“O you, who in some pretty boat,Eager to listen, have been followingBehind my ship, that singing sails alongTurn back to look again upon your own shores;Tempt not the deep, lest unawares,In losing me, you yourselves might be lost.The sea I sail has never yet been passed;Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo,And Muses nine point out to me the Bears.You other few who have neck upliftedBetimes to the bread of angels upon Which one lives and does not grow sated,Well may you launch your vesselUpon the deep sea.”
“Now had the sun to that horizon reach'd,That covers, with the most exalted pointOf its meridian circle, Salem's walls;And night, that opposite to him her orbRounds, from the stream of Ganges issued forth,Holding the scales, that from her hands are droptWhen she reigns highest: so that where I was,Aurora's white and vermeil - tinctured cheekTo orange turn'd as she in age increased.”