Nothing which is harmonized by the bond of the Muse can be changed from its own to another language without destroying its sweetness

Everywhere is here and every when is now.

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

As the geometer intently seeks to square the circle, but he cannot reach, through thought on thought, the principle he needs, so I searched that strange sight.

In that part of the book of my memory before the which is little that can be read, there is a rubric, saying, Incipit Vita Nova. Under such rubric I find written many things; and among them the words which I purpose to copy into this little book; if not all of them, at the least their substance.

Follow your own star!

Oh blind! Oh ignorant, self-seeking cupidity which spurs us so in the short mortal life and steeps us so through all eternity!