The 10 Cannots of William J. H. Boetcker

I ran across some great words in my readings this past week. I don't exactly remember where I read them. But, I thought they were too good not to share them in this blog.

I was originally led to believe that these words were written/spoken by Abraham Lincoln. Upon doing more research, however, I discovered otherwise.

The great words I'm referring to are called The 10 Cannots of William J. H. Boetcker, originally published in 1916, and they read like this:


You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.


94 years later these words are still very powerful (and also very true!). God bless William J. H. Boetcker for writing them down.

I'm going to remember these 10 Cannots for a long time to come. Too bad these great words aren't "required reading" for all citizens of the United States of America today. We could really use wisdom like this again in our civic/political arena...