“The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty,
For want of fighting was grown rusty,
And ate into itself, for lack
Of somebody to hew and hack.”
Canto I, line 359
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Samuel Butler (poet) 81
poet and satirist 1612–1680Related quotes

Il n'est pas défendu, en littérature, de ramasser une arme rouillée; l'important est de savoir aiguiser la lame et d'en reforger la poignée à la mesure de sa main.
Souvenirs d'un homme de lettres (Paris: C. Marpon et E. Flammarion, 1888) p. 178; George Burnham Ives (trans.) Thirty Years in Paris (Boston: Little, Brown, 1900) p. 134.

On his come back fight against Marvin Hagler http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE2DD1F31F931A35756C0A960948260
Criticising press reports that he had violated the ministerial code of conduct; he later started a libel trial, which ended in his conviction for perjury.
Statement of (10 April 1995); as quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations, 3rd ed., (2007), p. 6.

“Into a dancer you have grown from the seeds somebody else has sown”
For a Dancer

Naaman's Song http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/prose/LimitsRenewals/naamansong.html, Stanza 2.
Other works

“We're going to fight to the end. But it's better if you fight to somebody else's end.”
Volume 2, Ch. 2
Fiction, The Book of the Short Sun (1999–2001)

“Fight the enemy with the weapons he lacks.”
Quoted in Ossipov, "Suvorov," 1945.