The blacksmith who employs no journeyman is never conscious of any conflict between the capital invested in his anvil, hammer and bellows, and the labor he performs with them, because in fact, there is none.Leland Stanford, Businessman, (1889)

ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.Ambrose Bierce, Writer, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary (2001)

If I wasn’t there; When Barney Devlin hammered; The midnight anvil; I can still hear it: twelve blows; Struck for the millenium.Seamus Heaney, Poet, “Midnight Anvil” (2006)

Life’s a forge! Yes, and hammer and anvil, too! You’ll be roasted, smelted, and pounded, and you’ll scarce know what’s happening to you. But stand boldly to it! Metal’s worthless till it’s shaped and tempered! More labor than luck. Face the pounding, don’t fear the proving; and you’ll stand well against any hammer and anvil.Lloyd Alexander, Author, Taran Wanderer (1967)

And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil’s chime; Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom; In the forge’s dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Writer, “Nuremberg” (1888)

Under a spreading chestnut-tree The village smithy stands; The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms, Are strong as iron bands.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Writer, “The Village Blacksmith” (1840)

One day we will all cherish the memory of having blacksmiths on every corner.George Singleton, Author

Keep the rhythm of the bellows; Keep the fire glowing red; Never forget your place, good fellow; Never you let the coals go dead.Michelle Joelle, Poet, “The Blacksmith’s Apprentice” (2014)

The Armourers accomplishing the knights; With busy hammers closing rivets up; Give dreadful note of preparation.William Shakespeare, Henry V (1599)

I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus; The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool.William Shakespeare, King John (1598)

The anvil must be somewhere in the centre; Horned as a unicorn, at one end and square;

Set there immoveable: an altar.

Of the four elements: air, earth, water, and fire; Man stole only one from the gods. Fire. And with it, man forged his will upon the world.Anonymous

I don’t claim to be the best blacksmith in Whiterun. Eorlund Gray-Mane’s got that honor. The man’s steel is legendary. All I ask is a fair chance.Adrianne Avenicci, Blacksmith, The Elder Scrolls (2005)

But can you forge a nail?” the blond boy asks; And the blacksmith shoves a length of  iron rod;

Deep in the coal fire cherished by the bellows; Until it glows volcanic. He was a god;

Before anachronism, before the tasks; That had been craft were jobbed out to machine.

The smith also sitting by the anvil, and considering the iron work, the vapour of the fire wasteth his flesh, and he fighteth with the heat of the furnace: the noise of the hammer and the anvil is ever in his ears, and his eyes look still upon the pattern of the thing that he maketh; he setteth his mind to finish his work, and watcheth to polish it perfectly.Ecclesiasticus, 38:28

A single blow of a blacksmith is equal to a hundred blows of a goldsmith.Indian Proverb