---
title: Tools
tags: []
---
# Tools

A tool is a _thing_ used to achieve an objective.
Tools may be a physical object like a hand tool or power tool,
a piece of [[software|application software]],
a process, a technique,
or something more conceptual like a way of thinking (paradigm).

Tools may have multiple uses,
some intended and some not.

It is well understood that quality and efficiency suffer
when one uses the wrong tool for the job.

## Quotes

> [!quote] John Culkin, commonly attributed to Marshall McLuhan
> We shape our tools and, thereafter, our tools shape us.

> [!quote] _[[thoreau_1854_walden|Walden]]_, Henry David Thoreau
> Men have become the tools of their tools.

> [!quote] Jeff Duntemann
> A good tool improves the way you work.
> A great tool improves the way you think.

> [!quote] Alan Watts
> We are sick with a fascination
> for the useful tools of names and numbers,
> of symbols, signs, conceptions, and ideas.

> [!quote] Paul Arden
> If you get stuck, draw with a different pen.
> Change your tools; it may free your thinking.
