The Ten "You Cannots"

[swsmailman]

My Grandpa sent this to me today and I thought I would share them with everyone on here.


If you have not seen them, here they are:

1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
3. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
4. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
5. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.
6. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
7. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
8. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
9. You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
10. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.

Over the years they have been incorrectly attributed to Abraham Lincoln. Actually they were written in 1916 by the Reverend William Boetcker, a Presbyterian clergyman and pamphlet writer. The confusion stemmed from a pamphlet published in 1942 entitled "Lincoln on Limitations." The pamphlet had a Lincoln quote on one side and these statements by the Boetcker on the other side. Although the pastor was given credit on the pamphlet, many reading the pamphlet wrongly assumed that all of the statements were by Lincoln.

Sometimes people confuse it with a statement by the late Adrian Rogers. "You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

There is wisdom in both of these pastors' sayings. We live in a world today that really believes we can help one part of society by harming another part of society. We need to listen to these wise men.

 

[Texas1911]

The liberals argue that one part of society takes from the other, but the problem is ... the only person taking from me every single year is the government.

 

[cougartex]

Your Grandpa is very wise, thanks for posting.

 

[Willy]

I like it.

I wish my grandfathers were still around.

 

[willygene]

I wish my grandfather was still here but my father still is and he thinks that way as do i. The progressive people need to find another country to screw up.

 

[Texasjack]

The Eleventh "cannot" could be: "You cannot convince a liberal that facts are more important than feelings."

 

[M. Sage]

The Eleventh "cannot" could be: "You cannot convince a liberal that facts are more important than feelings."

You can with some of them. I used to live in Liberaltopia and won a few debates, changed a few minds. A lot of liberals are liberal because they're intellectually lazy. Shake them out of that laziness and they become reasonable people. It's the ones who spend more energy being lazy than they would if they were honest that you'll never make any progress with (pun intended). They're the ones that make me want to puke.

 

[cuate]

Truths that should be written in steel and posted where all politicos have to read them ten times a day.....But, the worthless drones that live off of the workers, and the knee jerk, bleeding heart liberals will never get it. Those campaign and stay in office for life, professional hanger ons will do anything for votes, sell us normal working people out, tax us to death, and keep voting themselves astronomical pay raises and retirement as well as a medical care that we could never afford, fight term limits like it was the plague,
and turn our beloved country into another socialistic cesspool like so many others in Europe and worldwide. Not many months until the November elections....Do your part to send those people back to where they came from !!!