“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
“It is better to be the hammer than the nail.”
Egwene al'Vere
(15 October 1991)
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
“If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as 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)
“I held a nail in place and slammed it with the hammer. Best. Chore. Ever.”
Source: Immortal Beloved
“Oh, a passing, skeptical kind of interest. I'm a hammer-and-nails kind of guy.”
Cave on his interest in Eastern and nontheistic spirituality
God and religion
