Shoemaking Quotes, Quotations, and Sayings

25 Shoemaking Quotes
[1-25] 
“A cobbler, . . . produced several new grins of his own invention, having been used to cut faces for many years together over his last.”
Joseph Addison Quotes
Source: in the "Spectator", no. 173
“To one commending an orator for his skill in amplifying petty matters, Agesilaus said: "I do not think that shoemaker a good workman that makes a great shoe for a little foot."”
Agesilaus, the Great Quotes
Source: Laconic Apophthegemns
“Him that makes shoes go barefoot himself.”
Robert Burton Quotes
Source: Anatomy of Melancholy--Democritus to the Reader (p. 34), (ed. 1887)
“Ye tuneful cobblers! still your notes prolong, Compose at once a slipper and a song; So shall the fair your handiwork peruse, Your sonnets sure shall please--perhaps your shoes.”
Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron) Quotes
Source: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (l. 751)
“I can tell where my own shoe pinches me.”
Cervantes (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra) Quotes
Source: Don Quixote (pt. I, ch. IV)
“The shoemaker makes a good shoe because he makes nothing else.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
Source: Letters and Social Aims--Greatness
“If you had taken off the shoe then, at length you would feel in what part it pinched you. [Lat., Si calceum induisses, tum demum sentires qua parte te urgeret.]”
Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
Source: Letters and Social Aims--Greatness
“Let firm, well hammer'd soles protect thy feet Through freezing snows, and rains, and soaking sleet; Should the big last extend the shoe too wide, Each stone will wrench the unwary step aside; The sudden turn may stretch the swelling vein, The cracking joint unhinge, or ankle sprain; And when too short the modish shoes are worn, You'll judge the seasons by your shooting corn.”
John Gay Quotes
Source: Trivia (bk. I, l. 33)
“I was not made of common calf, Nor ever meant for country loon; If with an axe I seem cut out, The workman was no cobbling clown; A good jack boot with double sole he made, To roam the woods, or through the rivers wade.”
Giuseppe Giusti Quotes
Source: The Chronicle of the Boot
“Marry because you have drank with the king, And the king hath so graciously pledged you, You shall no more be called shoemakers. But you and yours to the world's end Shall be called the trade of the gentle craft.”
Giuseppe Giusti Quotes
Source: The Chronicle of the Boot
“As he cobbled and hammered from morning till dark, With the footgear to mend on his knees, Stitching patches, or pegging on soles as he sang, Out of tune, ancient catches and glees.”
Oscar H. Harpel Quotes
Source: The Haunted Cobbler
“One said he wondered that leather was not dearer than any other thing. Being demanded a reason: because, saith he, it is more stood upon than any other thing in the world. - William Hazlitt,”
William Hazlitt Quotes
Source: Shakespeare Jest Books--Conceits, Clinches, Flashes and Whimzies (no. 86)
“The title of Ultracrepidarian critics has been given to those persons who find fault with small and insignificant details.”
William Hazlitt Quotes
Source: Table-talk--Essay (22)
“The wearer knowes, where the shoe wrings. [The wearer knows best where the shoe pinches.]”
George Herbert Quotes
Source: Jacula Prudentum
“A careless shoe string, in whose tie I see a wilde civility.”
Robert Herrick Quotes
Source: Delight in Disorder
“Cinderella's lefts and rights To Geraldine's were frights, And I trow The damsel, deftly shod, Has dutifully trod Until now.”
Frederick Locker-Lampson Quotes
Source: To My Mistress's Boots
“Oh, where did hunter win So delicate a skin For her feet? You lucky little kid, You perished, so you did, For my sweet.”
Frederick Locker-Lampson Quotes
Source: To My Mistress's Boots
“The fairy stitching gleams On the sides and in the seams, And it shows That Pixies were the wags Who tipped these funny tags And these toes.”
Frederick Locker-Lampson Quotes
Source: To My Mistress's Boots
“Remember, cobbler, to keep to your leather. [Lat., Memento, in pellicula, cerdo, tenere tuo.]”
Frederick Locker-Lampson Quotes
Source: To My Mistress's Boots
“When we see a man with bad shoes, we say it is no wonder, if he is a shoemaker. [Fr., Quand nous veoyons un homme mal chausse, nous disons que ce n'est pas merveille, s'il est chausstier.]”
Michael Eyquen de Montaigne Quotes
Source: Essays (bk. I, ch. XXIV)
“To each foot its own shoe. [Fr., A chaque pied son soulier.]”
Michael Eyquen de Montaigne Quotes
Source: Essays (bk. III, ch. XIII)
“But from the hoop's bewitching round, He very shoe has power to wound.”
Edward Moore Quotes
Source: The Spider and the Bee--Fable X (l. 29)
“Shoemaker, stick to your last. [Lat., Ne supra crepidam judicaret.]”
Edward Moore Quotes
Source: The Spider and the Bee--Fable X (l. 29)
“. . . And holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. "Yet," added he, "none of you can tell where it pinches me."”
Plutarch Quotes
Source: Lives (vol. II, Life of Aemilius Paulus)
“Hans Grovendraad, an honest clown, By cobbling in his native town, Had earned a living ever. His work was strong and clean and fine, And none who served at Crispin's shrine Was at his trade more clever.”
Jan Van Ryswick (Ryswyk) Quotes
Source: Hans Grovendraad, translated from the French by F.W. Ricord