It may be that a more subtle person would find for this thing a reason of greater subtlety: but such is the reason that I find, and that liketh me best.
The purpose of the whole [the Comedy] and of this portion [the Paradiso] is to remove those who are living in this life from the state of wretchedness, and to lead them to the state of blessedness.
Thy soul is by vile fear assailed, which oft so overcasts a man, that he recoils from noblest resolution, like a beast at some false semblance in the twilight gloom.
Here my powers rest from their high fantasy, but already I could feel my being turned- instinct and intellect balanced equally. as in a wheel whose motion nothing jars- by the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars.