You Can't Have Your Cake and Eat It Too
You can't enjoy two mutually exclusive benefits — the proverb of trade-offs.
Origin
Recorded in John Heywood's *A Dialogue of Proverbs* (1546): 'wolde ye bothe eate your cake, and haue your cake?' The original order ('have, then eat') is the logical one — once eaten, the cake is no longer had. Modern English usually reverses the order. The phrase in its correct order appeared in the Unabomber's manifesto and helped his brother identify him to the FBI.
Modern usage
Universal shorthand for any either/or trade-off — work-life balance, freedom vs. security, eating out and saving money, dating around and committing. Used by parents at children demanding contradictory things, by economists at voters demanding low taxes and high spending, and by anyone wearied by mutually-exclusive demands.
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