“If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Abraham Maslow34
American psychologist 1908–1970Related quotes
Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) American psychologist
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
“When you don't have a hammer, you don't want anything to look like a nail.”
Robert Kagan book Of Paradise and Power
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)
Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator
At an interview with Stephen Colbert at Montclair Kimberley Academy on January 29th, 2010.
2010s
Variant: If you start wielding a hammer, then all your problems look like nails. And maybe they’re not. Maybe it's more subtle than that. And so your toolkit has to be able to morph into what is necessary for what it is that you confront at that moment.
“It is better to be the hammer than the nail.”
Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer
Egwene al'Vere
(15 October 1991)
“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist
Nelson Mandela on friendship, From his unplubished autobiographical manuscript written in 1975. Source: From Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations © 2010 by Nelson R. Mandela and The Nelson Mandela Foundation http://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/mini-site/selected-quotes <br class="br">1970s