The more perfect a thing is, the more susceptible to good and bad treatment it is.

As little flowers, which the chill of night has bent and huddled, when the white sun strikes, grow straight and open fully on their stems, so did I, too, with my exhausted force.

Justice divine has weighed: the doom is clear. All hope renounce, ye lost, who enter here.

I presumed to fix my look on the eternal light so long that I consumed my sight thereon.

O power of fantasy that steals our minds from things outside, to leave us unaware, although a thousand trumpets may blow loud--what stirs you if the senses show you nothing? Light stirs you, formed in Heaven, by itself, or by His will Who sends it down to us.

Hope not ever to see heaven. I come to lead you to the other shore; into the eternal darkness; into fire and ice.

O conscience, upright and stainless, how bitter a sting to thee is a little fault!