A knotty piece of timber must have smooth wedges. – English proverb quoted by John Ray, 1670

Put your soul into your work, not your hand… – State Safety News, September 1916, published by the University of Arizona Bureau

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

[E]dged tools are dangerous things to handle, and not infrequently do much hurt. – Agnes Reppllier, “Wit and Humor,” 1892 [A bit of context here: “Wit is the salt