“I would rather be the hammer than the anvil”
“I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail
Yes I would, if I could, I surely would
I'd rather be a hammer than a nail
Yes I would, if I only could, I surely would”
El Condor Pasa (If I Could)
Song lyrics, Bridge over Troubled Water (1970)
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Paul Simon 116
American musician, songwriter and producer 1941Related quotes
“If I had a hammer,
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening,
All over this land.”
"If I Had A Hammer" (1949) Though Seeger composed the music of this song the lyrics were actually written by fellow member of The Weavers, Lee Hays.
Misattributed
Context: If I had a hammer,
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening,
All over this land.
I'd hammer out danger,
I'd hammer out a warning,
I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land...
Well I got a hammer,
And I got a bell,
And I got a song to sing, all over this land.
It's the hammer of Justice,
It's the bell of Freedom,
It's the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
"Tugboat Complex" from the album Labor Days. Archived at " The Original Hip-Hop (Rap) Lyrics Archive http://ohhla.com/anonymous/aesoprck/rm_bside/tugboat.rck.txt," Accessed May 22, 2014.
And somehow, it was God. I wasn't sure that it was… just something cool and dark and clean.
God Dies (1931)
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