Men know the precepts of religion as a lawyer knows the law.

It no more follows out of that that they are religious--though they conceive that it does--than it follows that a lawyer is law-abiding.

It is in the acts of their lives that we must seek their real natures, and no single act of your life, Agostino, has yet given sign that the call is in your heart.
"To-day, for instance, at what is almost your first contact with the world, you indulge your human feelings to commit a violence; that you did not kill is as much an accident as that you broke Rinolfo's leg.

I do not say that you did a very sinful thing.

In a worldly youth of your years the provocation you received would have more than justified your action.