...that kind of surveying which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. They would prefer that I should do my work coarsely and not too well

...that kind of surveying which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. They would prefer that I should do my work coarsely and not too well, ay, not well enough. When I observe that there are different ways of surveying, my employer commonly asks which will give him the most land, not which is most correct. I once invented a rule for measuring cord-wood, and tried to introduce it in Boston; but the measurer there told me that the sellers did not wish to have their wood measured correctly- that he was already too accurate for them, and therefore they commonly got their wood measured in Charlestown before crossing the bridge. - Henry David Thoreau, from Life Without Principle, 1863 https://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper2/thoreau/life.html https://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper2/thoreau/life.html