Hit it with Your purse seems approprate now and then.

You've just got to "kiss the frogs" ... and see what happens.
SmoothBore

It wasn't blacksmithing related when a friend of mine used to say it, but it seems apropos:

 

 

Hit it again! It's still moving!

Wisdom is the ability to learn from someone else's mistakes, WITHOUT having to make them yourself...

SJS

"Mediocre artists borrow; great artists steal."

 

Saying attributed to Pablo Picasso, but probably not truly Picasso's.

Knowledge is not free it is earned. Turbo7

Marine machine tool instructor to new midshipman cadets, "Gentlemen, be careful in what you do because....nothing hurts worse than pain." From Master Sargent Robert Darnell. USMC air craft machinest. 

My son once said..."I know everything, I just can't remember it all at once..." 

"We dont serve coal up with a teaspoon" Charles R. Stevens

If the ground wants to look at your piece of hot metal, it is extremely rude to get in it's way!  Thomas Powers

Hot steel always has right of way. Turbo7

You WILL yield to superior inertia.

Frosty The Lucky.

"It is easier to ask forgiveness, than permission." Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (USN)

"You only have one chance to overdo something.  After that you're just fixing it." -My Dad as told to him by my Grandpa

"You CAN fix stupid if you break things down 'Barney Style'.  You CAN turn clumsiness into perfection through perfect practice and perfect repetition.  You CAN NOT fix willful ignorance or sheer laziness." -One of my old Marine Staff NCOs

Yada, Yada, "Black, Hot, Hard, Heavy, Sharp, AND/OR Dangerous" etc., etc. -Most likely every person to ever teach blacksmithing.

An old anvil is just a chunk of iron and steel that takes up space unless it rings with createtivety and inspiration.. Honor its history . 

MAKE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

Jim

I read it somewhere on this site " If you can't fix it with a bigger hammer then it must be an electrical problem. "

Nobody Special

to misquote a blues song, i love silver, and i love tin....but the way i love iron, ya know it's a sin

messing with an acetylene tank is a good way to retroactively cancel your birth certificate! Thomas Powers

Buy a shirt before you go into business for yourself.

At some point you will loose the one you have.

Junk is something you've kept for years and throw away three weeks before you need it.

You must start somewhere. After that you modify, change, build, rebuild, etc as you learn what works, and what works better.

"If you lose the necessary mass, you got nothin'!"

Credit for this goes to Rolando Deleon, deceased, former blacksmith of Santa Fe, NM.

"Electrons have mass? I didn't know they were Catholic," Barbara Frost, my Mother.

Frosty The Lucky.

"We have upped our quality,  Now up yours!" Grant Sarver

A friend was over at the shop today. He leaned against the anvil and said he was thinking about calling it a day. I asked if the anvil was burning his rump at all and he replied "no". So I said "Then get back to work. If you can lean on that anvil without burning yourself, You haven't worked hard enough today". He laughed, I scowled and we got another 4 hours out of the day. Nice day too. 

Yep, only sat on my anvil once...

Junk is something you've kept for years and throw away three weeks before you need it.

I beg to disagree! Not weeks - days

Göte

Did I say that? I must have been partaking in the stuff I was misquoting about...

Which brings us to a classic shop rule, if a little inelegant. No forging or power tools when drunk. When well and truly drunk, no fire. Bad puppy.

When you are doing a demonstration at the fair, nearly everyone watching you has a grandfather who was a real blacksmith.

And some of them are right!  Ask about their tools!

And some of them are right!  Ask about their tools!

Exactly! "Do you have any of his tools?" Is my stock answer to the old, "My Grandfather was a blacksmith," statement.

Some can be pretty obnoxious telling me how someone else does IT. I've never had a taker when I offered them the hammer. A spectator has to be pretty obnoxious for me to do that though.

My Great Grand Uncle Bert Hickson was a Railroad and lumber mill millwright. I must be doing something wrong I don't feel qualified for either in any way.

Frosty The Lucky.