“Nurse one vice in your bosom. Give it the attention it deserves and let your virtues spring up modestly around it. Then you'll have the miser who's no liar; and the drunkard who's the benefactor of the whole city.”
Malachi, in Act 3
The Matchmaker (1954)
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Thornton Wilder61
American playwright and novelist 1897–1975Related quotes
“You who make the laws, the vices and the virtues of the people will be your work.”
Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767–1794) military and political leader
(Autumn 1792) [Source: Oeuvres Complètes de Saint-Just, vol. 1 (2 vols., Paris, 1908), p. 380]
Madeline Carroll (1996) American actress
Source: Madeline Carroll Talks New Film ‘Destined To Ride’ – Exclusive Interview https://www.celebsecrets.com/madeline-carroll-talks-new-film-destined-to-ride-exclusive-interview/ (August 30, 2018)
“People who have no vices, have very few virtues.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
According to The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln (1867) by F. B. Carpenter, Lincoln quoted this as having been said to him by a fellow-passenger in a stagecoach. See also "Washington during the War", Macmillan's Magazine 6:24 http://books.google.com/books?id=rB4AAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA24&dq=folks (May 1862) <br class="br">Posthumous attributions <br class="br">Variant: It's my experience that folks who have no vices have generally very few virtues.
Thomas R. Marshall (1854–1925) American politician who served as the 28th Vice President of the United States
Recollections of Thomas R. Marshall: A Hoosier Salad (1925), Chapter XIV
Caroline Myss (1952) author from the United States
Source: Why People Don't Heal and How They Can: A Practical Programme for Healing Body, Mind and Spirit
Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) Queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until 1603
Speech to the Troops at Tilbury (1588)
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Found anonymously in newspaper columns from the early 1920s http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/12/31/kiss. Originally presented in dialogue format https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5219841/safety_first/: "Dorcas—”Do you ever allow a man to kiss you when you’re out motoring with him? Philippa—"Never, if a man can drive safely while kissing me he’s not giving the kiss the attention it deserves." <br class="br">It does not seem to have been attributed to Einstein until the 1990s (e.g. here https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=alt.freemasonry/YILn0A-U_WM/f1Grm2akU-4J). <br class="br">Misattributed
Nick Drake (1948–1974) British singer-songwriter
At the Chime of a City Clock
Song lyrics, Bryter Later (1970)