Considering he was neither priest nor scholar, the young man gave sensible, thoughtful replies -- the more so, perhaps, for being untrained, for he had not learned what he should believe or should not believe. Present a statement to him in flagrant contradiction to all Christian doctrine and he could be persuaded to agree on its good sense, unless he remembered it was the sort of thing of which pyres are made for the incautious. Iain Pears
About This Quote

This quote is taken from A. E. Housman's "A Shropshire Lad" A young lad of fifteen, who had just left school, heard his father say that he used to know a lad of fifteen, who knew no more than he did, but who became a bishop at the age of thirty. That was not true, for the boy afterwards became a priest, and no bishop. But it was wonderful how much he learnt in the next few years!

Source: The Dream Of Scipio

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