The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.

Although widely attributed to Dante, this wording does not appear in the Divine Comedy. The sentiment resembles Dante’s moral architecture in Inferno, where he condemns the “neutral” or “lukewarm” (the opportunists who refused to take a stand) to a contemptible fate in the Vestibule of Hell, outside the circles proper. In modern usage, the line functions as a rebuke to moral passivity: in moments of public injustice, refusing to choose sides is treated as a culpable choice that aids wrongdoing. As a database entry, it is best treated as a misattribution or later paraphrase inspired by Dante’s treatment of the ignavi rather than a verbatim Dante quotation.