To Dante Alighieri, poet, language theorist, political theorist (born c. 1265, Republic of Florence and died September 13 or 14, 1321, Ravenna, Papal States, now Italy).

In his masterpiece, “Divine Comedy” written between 1306 and 1321, in Canto III, described as the “Vestibule of Hell” he passes through the gate of Hell, which bears an inscription ending with the famous phrase "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate” most frequently translated as "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”. Dante and his guide Virgil, hear the anguished screams of the “Uncommitted”. These are the souls of people who in life took no sides; the opportunists who were for neither good nor evil, but instead were merely concerned with themselves.

Virgil is the guide who takes the reader through the author's examination of the afterlife, which travels through the Inferno (Hell), the Purgatorio (Purgatory), and the Paradiso (Heaven).

The 1814 translation into English by the Reverend H. F. Cary is the origin of this phrase in English, although he gave it as the less commonly used 'All hope abandon ye who enter here'.

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 mov'd:

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 endure.

All hope abandon ye who enter here.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org