Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Nonsense
A little nonsense now and then
Is relished by the wisest men.
Anonymous.
He killed the noble Mudjokivis.
Of the skin he made him mittens,
Made them with the fur side inside,
Made them with the skin side outside.
He, to get the warm side inside,
Put the inside skin side outside;
He, to get the cold side outside,
Put the warm side fur side inside.
That’s why he put the fur side inside,
Why he put the skin side outside,
Why he turned them inside outside.
Given as Anon. in Carolyn Wells—Parody Anthology. P. 120.
When Bryan O’Lynn had no shirt to put on,
He took him a sheep skin to make him a’ one.
“With the skinny side out, and the wooly side in,
’Twill be warm and convanient,” said Bryan O’Lynn.
Old Irish Song.
For blocks are better cleft with wedges,
Than tools of sharp or subtle edges,
And dullest nonsense has been found
By some to be the most profound.
Butler—Pindaric Ode. IV. L. 82.
’T was brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Lewis Carroll—Through the Looking-glass. Ch. I.
To varnish nonsense with the charms of sound.
Churchill—The Apology. L. 219.
Conductor, when you receive a fare,
Punch in the presence of the passenjare.
A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare,
A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare,
A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare,
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!
Chorus
Punch, brothers! punch with care!
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!
S. L. Clemens (Mark Twain)—Punch, Brothers, Punch. Used in Literary Nightmare. Notice posted in a car and discovered by Mark Twain. Changed into the above jingle, which became popular, by Isaac Bromley and others. See Albert Bigelow Paine—Biography of Mark Twain.
Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem:
Dulce est desipere in loco.
Mingle a little folly with your wisdom; a little nonsense now and then is pleasant.
Horace—Carmina. IV. 12. 27.
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!
Who has written such volumes of stuff!
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
But a few think him pleasant enough.
Edward Lear—Lines to a Young Lady.
No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the misfortune is to do it solemnly.
Montaigne—Essays. Bk. III. Ch. I.
There’s a skin without and a skin within,
A covering skin and a lining skin,
But the skin within is the skin without
Doubled and carried complete throughout.
Power of Atherstone.
From the Squirrel skin Marcosset
Made some mittens for our hero.
Mittens with the fur-side inside,
With the fur side next his fingers
So’s to keep the hand warm inside.
G. Strong (“Marc Antony Henderson”);—Song of the Milgenwater. Parody of Hiawatha.
A careless song, with a little nonsense in it now and then, does not misbecome a monarch.
Horace Walpole—Letter to Sir Horace Mann, (1770).