Men who really mean to do any thing do not use fancy tools.
 Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands (1854). copy citation

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Author Harriet Beecher Stowe
Source Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands
Topic tool meaning
Date 1854
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6931/pg6931-images.html

Context

“My heart melted as I looked at these two, so long divided,—he so long a mourner, she so long mourned,—now calmly resting side by side in a sleep so tranquil. We went through the palace. We saw the present king's writing desk and table in his study, just as he left them. His writing establishment is about as plain as yours. Men who really mean to do any thing do not use fancy tools. His bed room, also, is in a style of severe simplicity. There were several engravings fastened against the wall; and in the anteroom a bust and medallion of the Empress Eugenie—a thing which I should not exactly have expected in a born king's palace;” source