This mountain is so formed that it is always wearisome when one begins the ascent, but becomes easier the higher one climbs. - Dante Alighieri

O human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?

Ego tamquam centrum circuli, cui simili modo se habent circumferentiae partes; tu autem non sic.

And when he had put his hand on mine with a cheerful look, wherefrom I took courage, he brought me within to the secret things. Here sighs, laments, and deep wailings were resounding through the starless air; wherefore at first I wept thereat. Strange tongues, horrible utterances, words of woe, accents of anger, voices high and faint, and sounds of hands with them, were making a tumult which whirls always in that air forever dark, like the sand when the whirlwind breathes.