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)
Posthumous attributions
Variant: It's my experience that folks who have no vices have generally very few virtues.
As quoted in The Seven Deadly Sins (2000) by Steven Schwartz, p. 23
“You who make the laws, the vices and the virtues of the people will be your work.”
(Autumn 1792) [Source: Oeuvres Complètes de Saint-Just, vol. 1 (2 vols., Paris, 1908), p. 380]
“I have known many people to ask for advice but very few who wanted it and none who followed it.”
The Short Reign of Pippin IV (1957)
as quoted in The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1927), p. 137
“To flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom.”
Virtus est vitium fugere et sapientia prima
stultitia caruisse.
Epistles (c. 20 BC and 14 BC)
"On Cant and Hypocrisy"
Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)
“More people are flattered into virtue than bullied out of vice.”
The Analysis of the Hunting Field (1846) ch. 1
“Very few reputations are gained by unsullied virtue.”
The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) The Sins of Prince Saradine
The Father Brown Mystery Series (1910 - 1927)
“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.”
Letter to Major-General Robert Howe (17 August 1779), published in "The Writings of George Washington": 1778-1779, edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (1890)
Paraphrased variants:
Few men have the virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
Few men have virtue enough to withstand the highest bidder
1770s
“There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.”
