“A knife is sharpened on stone, steel is tempered by fire, but men must be sharpened by men.”
Source: The Walking Drum (1984), Ch. 57
Source: Adventures of a Mathematician - Third Edition (1991), Chapter 15, Random Reflections on Mathematics and Science, p. 278
“A knife is sharpened on stone, steel is tempered by fire, but men must be sharpened by men.”
Source: The Walking Drum (1984), Ch. 57
“No, I do not weep at the world. I'm too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”
How It Feels to Be Colored Me (1928)
Source: Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings
Context: I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to that sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world — I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.
“Nothing so sharpens the thought process as writing down one's arguments.”
The Rickover Effect (1992)
Context: Nothing so sharpens the thought process as writing down one's arguments. Weaknesses overlooked in oral discussion become painfully obvious on the written page.
Narrated in Saheeh Muslim, Book 021, Number 4810
Sunni Hadith
Letter to Abd al-Rahman bin Nu'aym, also quoted in History of the Prophets and Kings, Vol. 24, p. 101
Source: 1961 - 1975, Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography', 1970, p. 286
Quote from The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 34
quotes, undated