The civil law cannot provide but by common measures… all their rules are made by as common a measure as they can, and they are the best rules that have the fewest exceptions: the best Carpenters make the fewest chips: but some there must be. – Jeremy Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium, or The Rule of Conscience, 1659

Lang or ye cut Balkland wood with a pen knife. – Scottish proverb, said when people work with improper tools, c.1500s

Split your own wood, and it will warm you twice. – Old New England Saying