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We shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the…

Quote bySydney Smith · 1771–1845

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy (1849), Lecture IX : On the Conduct of the Understanding.; this provides the origin of the phrase "a square peg in a round hole"..

English (original)

we shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole. The officer and the office, the doer and the thing done, seldom fit so exactly, that we can say they were almost made for each other.

— Sydney Smith

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