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

Who answers when you knock on wood? – J. Drummond, People, 1969

Are the tools without, which the carpenter puts forth his hands to, or are they and all the carpentry within himself; and would he not smile at the notion that chest or house is more than he? – C.A. Bartol, The Rising Faith, Chapter XI: Personality, 1873

Woodworkers are knotty. – Author unknown

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