The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

My Favorite Quotes by William J. H. Boetcker

William J. H. Boetcker (1873–1962,) fully William John Henry Boetcker, was a German-born American Presbyterian minister, publisher, labor movement coordinator, and influential public speaker.

Born in Altona, a suburb of Hamburg, Boetcker published Neuster Ratzelschatz (1890,) a book of puzzles and riddles at age 17, becoming Germany’s youngest published author. He migrated to America with a study scholarship, arriving in Chicago in 1891. After attending Chicago Theological Seminary and German Theological School of Newark, New Jersey, he was ordained as a minister by the Reformed Church of America in 1897.

Boetcker served as a priest at the German Reformed Church in Brooklyn, New York, and the First German Presbyterian Church in Shelbyville, Indiana, before forsaking his role as a priest to become a coordinator of the labor movement. He rallied employers against extremist union organizers in Toledo, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He started a publishing company and issued works such as the pamphlets The Industrial Decalogue (1911.) He finally relocated to Geneva, Ohio, and ran his speaking and publishing businesses from Erie, Pennsylvania.

Boetcker became a prolific producer of written thoughts; his “Golden Nuggets” frequently appeared in newspapers. Boetcker sometimes used the pennames Tianus Tiorio (an acronym for “Truth in a Nutshell” and “Think It Over, Reason It Out!”) and Civis Americanus.

Some of Boetcker’s sayings are frequently misattributed to President Abraham Lincoln. According to Albert A. Woldman (Harper’s Magazine, May-1950,) Boetcker’s published The Ten Cannots (1916,) which emphasize the freedom and responsibility of the individual upon oneself. In 1942, a conservative political organization printed a leaflet with “Lincoln on Private Property,” containing the Lincoln’s 1864 communiqué to a committee from the Workingmen’s Association of New York, and his 1860 speech at New Haven, Connecticut. The other side of the leaflet contained Boetcker’s “Ten Cannots” on the other. Later reprints of this leaflet, sometimes titled “Lincoln on Limitations,” missed out Boetcker’s name, and implied that its entire content, including “Ten Cannots,” was Lincoln’s. Even President Ronald Reagan misattributed some Boetcker quotes to Lincoln in his 1992 address to the Republican National Convention in Houston.

Although William J. H. Boetcker is not well known today his wisdom is timeless. Some of his most famous quotes of wisdom are:

“A man is judged by the company he keeps, and a company is judged by the men it keeps, and the people of Democratic nations are judged by the type and caliber of officers they elect.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“A man who tries to make the workmen believe that their employers are their natural enemies is indeed the worst enemy of workmen. For the employees of yesterday are the employers of today, and the employees of today can and will partly be the employers of tomorrow.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“A man without religion or spiritual vision is like a captain who finds himself in the midst of an uncharted sea, without compass, rudder and steering wheel. He never knows where he is, which way he is going and where he is going to land.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“Are you appalled at existing conditions? Don’t waste your energy trying to change conditions from without! Change the Human Heart from within.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“Before you can write a check, you must first make out a deposit slip; before you can draw money out of a bank, you must put money into a bank; before you are entitled to a living, you must give the world a life; if you want to make a first-class living, learn to give the world a first-class life.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“Beware of ignorance when in motion; look out for inexperience when in action, and beware of the majority when mentally poisoned with misinformation, for collective ignorance does not become wisdom.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“Every so often we hear people clamor for a change. Let’s change the Constitution, change the form of Government, change everything for better or worse except to change the only thing that needs changing first: The human heart and our standard of success and human values.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“If you want to know how rich you really are, find out what would be left of you tomorrow if you should lose every dollar you own tonight?
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“It is better to be old-fashioned and right than to be up-to-date and wrong.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“Many modern (so-called) Reformers are just as dangerous as the physician who makes a wrong diagnosis of a disease. They see the trouble from without and prescribe external remedies, while the cause of the trouble is within and needs internal treatment.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“Nations begin to dig their own graves when men talk more of human rights and less of human duties.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“Never mind what others do; do better than yourself, beat your own record each and everyday, and you are a success.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“No man can make good during working hours who does the wrong thing outside of working hours.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“The individual activity of one man with backbone will do more than a thousand men with a mere wishbone.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“The more men, generally speaking, will do for a Dollar when they make it, the more that Dollar will do for them when they spend it.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“True religion is not a mere doctrine, something that can be taught, but is a way of life. A life in community with God. It must be experienced to be appreciated. A life of service. A living by giving and finding one’s own happiness by bringing happiness into the lives of others.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“What a pleasure life would be to live if everybody would try to do only half of what he expects others to do.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“What our country really needs most are those things which money cannot buy.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“What the carburetor, sparkplug and self-starter are to an automobile, initiative, private enterprise and executive ability are to industry as a whole, including the wage earner, wage payer, wage spender and wage saver, i.e., the investor. If the sparkplug and self-starter get out of commission, the car will come to a standstill.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“When away from home always be like the kind of man you would care to take into your own home.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“You can employ men and hire hands to work for you, but you will have to win their hearts to have them work with you.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“You can succeed if nobody else believes it, but you will never succeed if you don’t believe in yourself.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“You cannot raise a man up by calling him down.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“Your success depends mainly upon what you think of yourself and whether you believe in yourself.”
 - William J. H. Boetcker

“The Ten Cannots” by William J. H. Boetcker:

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.”

“The Seven National Crimes" by William J. H. Boetcker:

1. I don't think.
2. I don't know.
3. I don't care.
4. I am too busy.
5. I leave well enough alone.
6. I have no time to read and find out.
7. I am not interested.

Note – all of the above is from Inspirational Quotations.