“Then, O King! the God, so saying,Stood, to Pritha's Son displayingAll the splendour, wonder, dreadOf His vast Almighty-head.Out of countless eyes beholding,Out of countless mouths commanding,Countless mystic forms enfoldingIn one Form: supremely standingCountless radiant glories wearing,Countless heavenly weapons bearing,Crowned with garlands of star-clusters,Robed in garb of woven lustres,Breathing from His perfect PresenceBreaths of every subtle essenceOf all heavenly odours; sheddingBlinding brilliance; overspreading-Boundless, beautiful- all spacesWith His all-regarding faces;So He showed! If there should riseSuddenly within the skiesSunburst of a thousand sunsFlooding earth with beams undeemed-of,Then might be that Holy One'sMajesty and radiance dreamed of!”

“Are you an atheist?""Oh no, I honor all the gods.""And how many belong to that all?""Countless. And one.""How meaningless!""'Oliness, let me hear you count to one.""One.""Point at that one."Brownpony stirred restlessly. Finally he tapped his index finger against his temple.Wooshin laughed quietly. "Wrong. You had to think about it too long. And you didn't count to one. You counted from one and stopped. The one is countless.”

“Shall any gazer see with mortal eyes,Or any searcher know by mortal mind,Veil after veil will lift--but there must be Veil upon veil behind.”

“When he, whoever of the gods it was, had thus arranged in order and resolved that chaotic mass, and reduced it, thus resolved, to cosmic parts, he first moulded the Earth into the form of a mighty ball so that it might be of like form on every side … And, that no region might be without its own forms of animate life, the stars and divine forms occupied the floor of heaven, the sea fell to the shining fishes for their home, Earth received the beasts, and the mobile air the birds … Then Man was born:… though all other animals are prone, and fix their gaze upon the earth, he gave to Man an uplifted face and bade him stand erect and turn his eyes to heaven.”

“Behold yon miserable creature. That Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality, for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn this lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy.”

“Fight ever on: this earthly stuff If used God’s way will be enough. Face to the firing line o friendFight out life’s battle to the end. One soldier, when the fight was red,Threw down his broken sword and fled.Another snatched it, won the day, With what his comrade flung away.”

“In so many ways, he had wanted this his whole life—or at least ever since he’d survived his transition and had any sexual impulse at all. This moment was the culmination of countless daydreams and innumerable fantasies, his secret desire made manifest.”