“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”
The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance (1966), Ch. 2, p. 15; although some similar statements to describe fundamental errors in human perception have been attributed to others, his expression, or slight paraphrases of it, is one of the earliest yet found to be documented in published writings, and remains among the most popular.
1940s-1960s
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Abraham Maslow 34
American psychologist 1908–1970Related quotes
“If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”

“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

“When you don't have a hammer, you don't want anything to look like a nail.”
Alternate version: If you don't have a hammer, you don't want anything to look like a nail.
Of Paradise and Power, p. 26
According to Kagan, this is a variation of the proverb "When you have a hammer, all problems start to look like nails." (p. 25 of the same book)

“It is better to be the hammer than the nail.”
Egwene al'Vere
(15 October 1991)
“I held a nail in place and slammed it with the hammer. Best. Chore. Ever.”
Source: Immortal Beloved

"I am Goya"; translated by Stanley Kunitz, p. 3.
Antiworlds, and the Fifth Ace