Status Updates From Dante: De vulgari eloquenti...

"If we know that a human being is a rational animal, and that an animal consists of a body and a sensitive soul, but do not know what that soul is, nor yet that body, we cannot have a perfect understanding of the human being; for the perfect understanding of anything must take into account its basic elements..." - book 2, section x

this is the second time he's mentioned how even numbers are inferior to odd ones, he's literally so funny

"Let them lay such presumption aside; and, if nature or their own incompetence has made them geese, let them not try to emulate the star-seeking eagle." - book 2, section IV

"And since language is nothing other than the vehicle indispensable to our thinking, as a horse is to a knight, and since the best horses are suited to the best knights, as I said, the best language is suited to the best thinking." - book 2, section I

"For what the Romans speak is not so much a vernacular as a vile jargon, the ugliest of all the languages spoken in Italy; and this should come as no surprise, for they also stand out among all Italians for the ugliness of their manners and their outward appearance." -book 1, section XI

why is he giving medieval regina george

"Alas, how it shames me now to recall the dishonouring of the human race! But since I can make no progress without passing that way, though a blush comes to my cheek and my spirit recoils, I shall make haste to do so. Oh human nature, always inclined towards sin! Engaged in evil from the beginning, and never changing your ways!" - Book 1, Section VII

he's literally so dramatic, sassy man epidemic fr

"Yet, in so doing, I shall not bring to so large a cup only the water of my own thinking, but shall add to it more potent ingredients, taken or extracted from elsewhere, so that from these I may concoct the sweetest possible mead." -Book 1