Quotes: Broaden your toolkit
3 quotes on this theme, each with its source and insight
The quotes
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”
Source: The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance, 1966 · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The sentence appears in Maslow’s 1966 book The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance; the familiar short form is a later paraphrase of his wording.
Maslow warns that familiar tools shape how we perceive problems: rely on one method and every situation starts to look like a use for that method. He wrote this in a 1966 critique of method‑centered science to urge flexibility and humility in problem‑solving.
“I was teaching at one of the universities while the country was suffering from a severe famine. People were dying of hunger, and I felt completely helpless. As an economist, I had no tools in my toolbox to deal with that kind of situation.”
Source: Wharton School interview, 2005 · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- Documented in a 2005 interview with the Wharton School; Yunus recounts teaching during the 1974 famine and lacking tools to address mass hunger.
Yunus captures the moral crisis of an economist whose classroom theories feel useless while people starve. Recorded in a 2005 Wharton interview, this realization pushed him from analysis to building practical institutions to relieve poverty. The line explains the origin of his hands-on work.
“For us, compromise never means surrender, but a step forward and some rest. That is all and nothing else.”
Source: To Young Political Workers, 2 February 1931 · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The sentence appears verbatim in Bhagat Singh’s dated primary text “To Young Political Workers” (2 Feb 1931) and is preserved in archival editions.
Bhagat Singh reframes compromise as a tactical move: not surrender, but a deliberate step forward and brief rest to continue the struggle. The line appears in his dated 2 February 1931 piece “To Young Political Workers,” where he debates revolutionary strategy.