Conscience, that boon companion who sets a man free under the strong breastplate of innocence, that bids him on and fear not.

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

No sadness is greater than in misery to rehearse memories of joy.

I, answering in the end, began: 'Alas, how many yearning thoughts, what great desire, have lead them through such sorrow to their fate?

Through me you pass into the city of woe: Through me you pass into eternal pain: Through me among the people lost for aye. Justice the founder of my fabric moved: To rear me was the task of power divine, Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. Before me things create were none, save things Eternal, and eternal I shall endure. All hope abandon, ye who enter here.

There sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the starless air, so that at first it made me weep; strange tongues, horrible language, words of pain, tones of anger, voices loud and hoarse, and with these the sound of hands, made a tumult which is whirling through that air forever dark, and sand eddies in a whirlwind.

Fame is not won on downy plumes nor under canopies; the man who consumes his days without obtaining it leaves such mark of himself on earth as smoke in air or foam on water.