When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail (2025)

Je n'en vois pas à première vue.

Le mieux me semble être de traduire le proverbe, en précisant: "Comme dit le/un proverbe anglais: Pour le marteau, tout ressemble à un clou".

Il y a des tas de proverbes africains, chinois, arabes... qui sont introduits de la sorte, puisque rares sont ceux qui comprennent ces langues : "Comme le dit le proverbe africain: Même si neuf femmes se mettent ensemble, elles ne feront pas un bébé en un mois" (un de mes préférés... ). Même si un proverbe français exprimait une idée semblable, il est souvent plus savoureux de rendre la 'couleur locale'.

guillaumedemanzac said:

I would interpret this metaphor as a personification meaning a person who hammers everyone thinks everybody is a nail to be hammered.

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So would I. That's also a reason for translating it as it is: everyone is free to understand it his own way.

Good research :

“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Mark Twain.

This French version/translation is a little inaccurate!!!! and there is nothing about people or problems in the original - only things ?????

The attribution to Mark Twain is apparently unsubstantiated. The earliest reference to the hammer/nail quote is something written in 1964 by the psychologist Abraham Maslow: "it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

The idea is that we limit our approaches or our options based on the tools we happen to have at hand, or the tools we are familiar with.

In psychology, this is known as confirmation bias, where people tend to fall back on existing beliefs or theories when faced with a new problem.

From Wikipedia: The concept is used frequently in medical circles, usually as a criticism. It refers to the use of techniques that the doctor is familiar with as opposed to the use of the proper techniques that are either more difficult, less profitable, or less familiar to the doctor. This extends to other professions e.g. if you take your poorly running car to the mechanic who specializes in transmissions, you are more likely to have a new transmission put in than to have the actual problem fixed. It extends to the handling of unfamiliar problems using old techniques of questionable effectiveness as opposed to formulating new and better techniques. It has the connotation of narrow-mindedness.

misterk said:

The attribution to Mark Twain is apparently unsubstantiated. The earliest reference to the hammer/nail quote is something written in 1964 by the psychologist Abraham Maslow: "it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."
(...) From Wikipedia: (...)

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Le sujet a sa page Wikipédia en français (cliquer dans la colonne de gauche) : Abraham Maslow — Wikipédia
et on trouve d'autres pages, comme celle-ci (lien) qui donne des variantes.