Find the perfect quote to float your boat. Shmoop breaks down key quotations from Inferno.
Primitivity Quotes
And almost where the hillside starts to rise – look there! – a leopard, very quick and lithe, a leopard covered with a spotted hide. He did not disappear from sight, but stayed; indeed,...
Man and the Natural World Quotes
These wretched ones, who never were alive, went naked and were stung again, again by horseflies and by wasps that circled them. The insects streaked their faces with their blood, which, mingled wit...
Lies and Deceit Quotes
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. Ah, it is hard to speak of what it was, that savage forest,...
Justice Quotes
THROUGH ME THE WAY INTO THE SUFFERING CITY, THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE ETERNAL PAIN, THROUGH ME THE WAY THAT RUNS AMONG THE LOST. JUSTICE URGED ON MY HIGH ARTIFICER; MY MAKER WAS DIVINE AUTHORITY, T...
Language and Communication Quotes
…when I faced that restless beast, which, even as she stalked me, step by step had thrust me back to where the sun is speechless. (Inf. I, 58-60)
Wisdom and Knowledge Quotes
O Muses, o high genius, help me now; o memory that set down what I saw, here shall your excellence reveal itself! (Inf. II, 7-9)
Compassion and Forgiveness Quotes
[Virgil quoting Beatrice]: "‘In Heaven there’s a gentle lady – one who weeps for the distress toward which I send you, so that stern judgment up above is shattered. And it was she...
Love Quotes
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; so that the hour and th...
Time Quotes
And just as he who unwills what he wills and shifts what he intends to seek new ends so that he’s drawn from what he had begun, so was I in the midst of that dark land, because, with all my t...
Respect and Reputation Quotes
[Virgil quoting Beatrice]: "‘O spirit of the courteous Mantuan, whose fame is still a presence in the world and shall endure as long as the world lasts, my friend who has not been the friend...