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Who really said it

I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail

Written by Abraham Maslow 1908–1970 · American psychologist · Brandeis University
Verified In copyright

This one is real, word for word. Maslow wrote the sentence in The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance (Harper & Row, New York, 1966); Quote Investigator ↗ verified it on paper at pages 15–16, and Wikiquote ↗ cites it to chapter 2, page 15. What is not purely his is the thought behind it — the philosopher Abraham Kaplan was circulating a boy-with-a-hammer version years earlier.

Last verified 24 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Verified quote & credit

“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail” Abraham Maslow, The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 15–16. Verified — the wording is Maslow's own. The underlying "law of the instrument," however, was formulated earlier by the philosopher Abraham Kaplan. Via Quotle.info

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The estate of Abraham H. Maslow and Harper & Row (now HarperCollins Publishers)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Abraham Maslow — American psychologist · Brandeis University. Theme: "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Work
The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance
Author
Abraham H. Maslow
Published
Harper & Row, New York, 1966 (LCCN 66011479)
Location
Chapter 2 — pages 15–16

I remember seeing an elaborate and complicated automatic washing machine for automobiles that did a beautiful job of washing them. … I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. pp. 15–16

Two sentences from the same passage. The hammer sentence is the one Quote Investigator ↗ verified on paper at pages 15 and 16; the car-wash sentence that sets it up is transcribed in Wikipedia’s law of the instrument ↗ article. The ellipsis marks material between them that we have not seen in the original and so do not reproduce.

First edition, Internet Archive
View the 1966 Harper & Row catalogue record
Quote Investigator: “If All You Have Is a Hammer, Everything Looks Like a Nail”

How the line was traced

  • The anchor. Quote Investigator ↗ cites the sentence to “The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance by Abraham H. Maslow, Quote Page 15 and 16, Published by Harper & Row, New York,” and marks the citation “Verified on paper.”
  • Second, independent confirmation. Wikiquote ↗ carries the line in its main sourced 1960s section — the page has no Disputed or Misattributed section at all — citing The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance (1966), ch. 2, p. 15.
  • The edition checks out. The Internet Archive catalogue record ↗ confirms the first edition: Harper & Row, New York, 1966, LCCN 66011479. The scan is access-restricted, so the page image is not publicly readable.
  • The one caveat. The idea is older than the sentence. Quote Investigator’s chronology places Abraham Kaplan’s boy-with-a-hammer version in February 1962 and in The Conduct of Inquiry (1964), and Wikipedia’s law of the instrument ↗ article notes the concept is credited to both men.
In copyright

The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance was first published by Harper & Row in New York in 1966, so it remains under copyright in the United States — well after the 1931 public-domain cutoff, and its Internet Archive scan is access-restricted for exactly that reason. Quoting the single sentence for identification and commentary is ordinary fair use; reproducing the surrounding passage or the chapter is not.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What people get wrong about it

The sentence itself is sound — this is one of the rare famous-psychologist quotes that survives checking. The trouble is everything that has grown around it: a shortened pop version that is not Maslow’s wording, and a concept named after him that somebody else stated first.

Abraham Kaplan prior claim

The concept now called “Maslow’s hammer” was in circulation before Maslow’s book. Quote Investigator ↗ documents the UCLA philosopher Abraham Kaplan telling an American Educational Research Association banquet in February 1962 that “Give a boy a hammer and everything he meets has to be pounded,” and printing “Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding” on page 28 of The Conduct of Inquiry (Chandler, 1964). Wikipedia’s law of the instrument ↗ article calls Kaplan’s 1964 formulation the first recorded statement of the concept.

Nobody in particular — a later compression paraphrase

“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” is not what Maslow wrote. Wikipedia describes it explicitly as the way Maslow’s hammer is popularly phrased ↗, not as his sentence. Maslow’s own line is longer, hedged and much more tentative: it begins “I suppose it is tempting…”

Warren Buffett (1984 instance) variant

The tightest version in circulation — “to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail” — is frequently quoted as though it were Maslow’s own words. It is not; Quote Investigator’s timeline ↗ records Warren Buffett using that phrasing in the journal Hermes in 1984.

An anonymous Victorian essayist antecedent

The image is far older than any of them. Quote Investigator ↗ traces it back to an anonymous piece called “Toys” in the periodical Once a Week in 1868: “Give a boy a hammer and chisel; show him how to use them; at once he begins to hack the doorposts…”

The verdict: the sentence is genuinely Maslow’s, printed in The Psychology of Science in 1966 and verified on paper ↗ at pages 15–16. Quote it as his — but quote it in full, and know that Abraham Kaplan got there first with the thought.

Context

Why the sentence landed

Maslow was not writing about carpentry. The Psychology of Science is an argument about researchers who let their favourite method decide which problems are worth having. The passage that carries this line opens with a machine: “I remember seeing an elaborate and complicated automatic washing machine for automobiles that did a beautiful job of washing them” — a device that was superb at exactly one thing and useless at everything else, as transcribed in Wikipedia’s law of the instrument ↗ article.

The idea now travels under the name Maslow’s hammer, which is a little unfair to Abraham Kaplan. Wikipedia calls Kaplan’s 1964 formulation “the first recorded statement of the concept,” while Quote Investigator ↗ documents Kaplan saying a version of it at an American Educational Research Association banquet in February 1962. Maslow’s contribution was the phrasing — he was the one who reached for the word nail in the shape everybody now repeats.

Kaplan had the idea. Maslow had the sentence.

The full hammer-and-nail chronology

1868 — an anonymous piece titled “Toys” in the periodical Once a Week: “Give a boy a hammer and chisel; show him how to use them; at once he begins to hack the doorposts…”

February 1962 — Abraham Kaplan, in a banquet speech to the American Educational Research Association: “Give a boy a hammer and everything he meets has to be pounded.” No nail.

1963 — Silvan Tomkins, in Computer Simulation of Personality: “If one has a hammer one tends to look for nails” — the first appearance of the nail in Quote Investigator’s timeline.

1964 — Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry: Methodology for Behavioral Science, page 28: “Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.”

1966 — Abraham Maslow, The Psychology of Science, pages 15–16: the sentence on this page.

1984 — Warren Buffett, in the journal Hermes: “to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail” — the compressed form that now often gets pinned back onto Maslow.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Wisdom Knowledge Doubt

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

“If All You Have Is a Hammer, Everything Looks Like a Nail”quoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation. Traces the saying from an 1868 periodical through Kaplan (1962, 1964) and Tomkins (1963) to Maslow’s 1966 wording, with the Maslow citation marked verified on paper at pages 15–16.
Abraham Maslow — sourced quotationsen.wikiquote.org

Lists the sentence in the main sourced 1960s section — not under Disputed or Misattributed — cited to The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance (1966), ch. 2, p. 15.
Law of the instrumenten.wikipedia.org

Covers the Kaplan-versus-Maslow credit question, transcribes Maslow’s automatic car-wash example from the same passage, and names the popular short form “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
Abraham Maslowen.wikipedia.org

Biography: born 1 April 1908, died 8 June 1970, American psychologist of the hierarchy of needs; notes his 1966 publication of The Psychology of Science and “Maslow’s hammer.”
The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance (1966 scan)archive.org

Internet Archive catalogue record and scan of the Harper & Row first edition, LCCN 66011479. Access-restricted, so the text is not freely readable, but the edition data is confirmable.

The real author

Who was Abraham Maslow?

Abraham Maslow

1908–1970 · American psychologist · Brandeis University

Abraham Harold Maslow (1 April 1908 – 8 June 1970) was an American psychologist best known for Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, his theory of psychological health built on fulfilling innate human needs in priority order, culminating in self-actualization. He taught at Brooklyn College and Brandeis University, and was a founding figure of humanistic psychology. In 1966 he published The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance, a critique of how method-bound researchers narrow the questions they are willing to ask — the book that contains this sentence.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Abraham H. Maslow, The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 15–16.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail’?” Last verified 24 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-suppose-it-is-tempting-if-the-only-tool-you-have-is-a/

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