"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2181646/posts
"The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. But you have to catch it yourself."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democ...l_inaccuracies
Just because everyone on the internet repeats something doesn't make it so. Nor does saying something in a book. A careful search of Franklin's papers reveals that he never wrote anything like either one of those quotes. No one who parrots those quotes (and many others) ever gives an actual attribution ("Letter to so-and-so, such-and-such date"). It's a game played by political hacks who want someone important to back up their own beliefs. It's called "cheating" and "lying". I don't think you're cheating or lying, but I do think quoting the meme without checking on it is lazy at the very least. It only takes a minute to check a quote. To defend that laziness with the comment "no one would believe it anyway" is even worse. The truth is the truth, whether anyone believes it or not.
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And if they are not by him indeed, at least their content is like that they could as well have been said or written by him
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Maybe the first one, but the comment on the Constitution misses the fact that it says nothing about "The Pursuit of Happiness". That is the Declaration of Independence. Franklin, who helped draft both, and signed both, would know the difference.