Friendship is love without its flowers or veil.
The virtue of Paganism was strength: the virtue of Christianity is obedience.
The ancients dreaded death: the Christian can only fear dying.
Friendship closes its eye rather than see the moon eclipsed; while malice denies that it is ever at the full.
There is no being eloquent for atheism. In that exhausted receiver the mind cannot use its wings, - the clearest proof that it is out of its element.
Nothing good bursts forth all at once. The lightning may dart out of a black cloud; but the day sends his bright heralds before him, to prepare the world for his coming.