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If you choose to represent the various parts in life by holes upon a table, of different shapes,—some circular, some triangular, some square, some oblong,—and the persons acting these parts by bits of wood of similar shapes, we shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole. The officer and the office, the doer and the thing done, seldom fit so exactly that we can say they were almost made for each other.

If you choose to represent the various parts in life by holes upon a table, of different shapes,—some circular, some triangular, some square, some oblong,—and the persons acting these parts by bits of wood of similar shapes, we shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole. The officer and the office, the doer and the thing done, seldom fit so exactly that we can say they were almost made for each other.

Approximate author period: c. 1807 AD · industrial

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Sydney Smith
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
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Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1807 AD · industrial
author lifetime midpoint
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Recorded source
Familiar Quotations, ninth edition (1905 printing) (1905 AD)

Sketches of Moral Philosophy.

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.