Ogden Nash Quotes

185 Sourced Quotes

The moral is that it is probably better not to sin at all, but if
some kind of sin you must be pursuing,
Well, remember to do it by doing rather than by not doing.

Ogden Nash
If you don't want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that you won't have to work.

Ogden Nash
I can't say that I feel particularly one way or the other towards bell-boy,
But I do admit that I haven't much use for the it's-just-as-well boys,
The cheery souls who drop around after every catastrophe and think they are taking the curse off
By telling you about somebody who is even worse off.
No matter how deep and dark your pit, how dank your shroud,
Their heads are heroically unbloody and unbowed.

Ogden Nash
Senator Smoot is an institute
Not to be bribed with pelf;
He guards our homes from erotic tomes
By reading them all himself.

Ogden Nash
The camel has a single hump;
The dromedary, two;
Or else the other way around,
I'm never sure. Are you?

Ogden Nash
First
Let the rockets flash and the cannon thunder,
This child is a marvel, a matchless wonder.
A staggering child, a child astounding,
Dazzling, diaperless, dumfounding,
Stupendous, miraculous, unsurpassed,
A child to stagger and flabbergast,
Bright as a button, sharp as a thorn,
And the only perfect one ever born.
Second
Arrived this evening at half-past nine.
Everybody is doing fine.
Is it a boy, or quite the reverse?
You can call in the morning and ask the nurse.

Ogden Nash
When people reject a truth or an untruth it is not because it is a truth or an untruth that they reject it.
No, if it isn't in accord with their beliefs in the first place they simply say, "Nothing doing," and refuse to inspect it.

Ogden Nash
And I also say Pooh for sweetness and light,
And if you want to get the most out of life, why the thing to do is to be a gossiper by day and gossipee by night.

Ogden Nash
One would be in less danger
From the wiles of the stranger
If one's own kin and kith
Were more fun to be with.

Ogden Nash
How easy for those who do not bulge
To not overindulge!

Ogden Nash
I hope of lightning our supply
Will never be exhausted;
You know it's lanterns in the sky
For angels who are losted.

Ogden Nash
Perhaps indeed the possession of wealth is constantly distressing,
But I should be quite willing to assume every curse of wealth if I could at the same time assume every blessing.
The only incurable troubles of the rich are the troubles that money can't cure,
Which is a kind of trouble that is even more troublesome if you are poor.
Certainly there are lots of things in life that money won't buy, but it's very funny —
Have you ever tried to buy them without money?

Ogden Nash
The folk who live in Scandinavia
Are famous for their odd behavia.
They have the frigidest of climates
And avoid their bellicose fellow-primates.
Though salesmen cluster at their door,
They don't want anybody's war.
It isn't that they put on airs;
They merely mind their own affairs.

Ogden Nash
So I think there is one rule every host and hostess ought to keep with the comb and nail file and bicarbonate and aromatic spirits on a handy shelf,
Which is don't spoil the denouement by telling the guests everything is terrible, but let them have the thrill of finding it out for themselves.

Ogden Nash
Abracadabra, thus we learn,
The more you create, the less you earn.
The less you earn, the more you're given,
The less you lead, the more you're driven,
The more destroyed, the more they feed,
The more you pay, the more they need
The more you earn, the less you keep,
And now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul should take
If the tax collector hasn't got it before I wake.

Ogden Nash
There is one thing that ought to be taught in all the colleges,
Which is that people ought to be taught not to go around always making apologies.

Ogden Nash
Middle age is when you've met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else...

Ogden Nash
Let us pause to consider the English,
Who when they pause to consider themselves they get all reticently thrilled and tinglish,
Because every Englishman is convinced of one thing, viz.:
That to be an Englishman is to belong to the most exclusive club there is.

Ogden Nash
There are two kinds of people who blow through life like a breeze,
And one kind is gossipers, and the other kind is gossipees,
And they certainly annoy each other,
But they certainly enjoy each other,
Yes, they pretend to flout each other,
But they couldn't do without each other...

Ogden Nash
There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball,
And that is to have either a clear conscience, or none at all.

Ogden Nash
The song of canaries
Never varies,
And when they're moulting
They're pretty revolting.

Ogden Nash
Home is heaven and orgies are vile,
But you need an orgy once in a while.

Ogden Nash
Never befriend the oppressed unless you are prepared to take on the oppressor.

Ogden Nash
Belinda lived in a little white house,
With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,
And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,
And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.

Ogden Nash
It is my duty, gentlemen, to inform you that women are dictators
all, and I recommend to you this moral:
In real life it takes only one to make a quarrel.

Ogden Nash
Whales have calves,
Cats have kittens
Bears have Cubs,
Bats have bittens,
Swans have cygnets,
Seals have puppies,
But guppies just have little guppies.

Ogden Nash
We love the kindly wind and hail,
The jolly thunderbolt,
We watch in glee the fairy trail
Of ampere, watt, and volt.

Ogden Nash
And I have no desire to get ugly,
But I cannot help mentioning that the door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly.

Ogden Nash
There was a young belle of old Natchez
Whose garments were always in patchez.
When comment arose
On the state of her clothes,
She drawled, When Ah itchez, Ah scratchez.

Ogden Nash
No, you never get any fun
Out of the things you haven't done.

Ogden Nash