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Quotes of the Day for 5 December 2007 – Tools
A patent was granted on this day in 1876 to Daniel C. Stillson of Somerville, Massachusetts for "a new and useful Improvement in Wrenches", the adjustable wrench with teeth we generally refer as a "pipe wrench". I don't do the kind of work that requires a pipe wrench, but I own, and greatly cherish, a staggering array of tools for the work I do. As you might have expected, I've got some quotes about Tools to go with them.
The quotes:
The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools.
- Confucius
Intelligence ... is the faculty of making artificial objects, especially tools to make tools.
- Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, 1907
We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.
- Marshall McLuhan, 1911 - 1980
Man is a Tool-using Animal.... Nowhere do you find him without Tools; without Tools he is nothing, with Tools he is all.
- Thomas Carlyle, 1795 - 1881
Every tool carries with it the spirit by which it was created.
- Wernher Karl Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, 1958
There is a great satisfaction in building good tools for other people to use.
- Freeman Dyson
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