Entry in progress—B.P.
 
Wikipedia: Sticks and Stones
“Sticks and Stones” is an English-language children’s rhyme. The rhyme persuades the child victim of name-calling to ignore the taunt, to refrain from physical retaliation, and to remain calm and good-living. The full rhyme is usually a variant of:
 
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But words will never harm me.

The rhyme is an example of linguistic Siamese twins.
(...)
It is reported to have appeared in The Christian Recorder of March 1862, a publication of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, where it is presented as an “old adage” in this form:
 
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me.

The phrase also appeared in 1872, where it is presented as advice in Tappy’s Chicks: and Other Links Between Nature and Human Nature, by Mrs. George Cupples. The version used in that work runs:
 
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But names will never harm me.
 
(Oxford English Dictionary)
sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me and variants: used, esp. by children, to express or encourage an attitude of indifference to taunts, insults, or other verbal abuse. In later use also shortened to sticks and stones and esp. used attributively to designate an attitude, behaviour, or action characterized by indifference to taunts, insults, or other verbal abuse.
1862   Christian Recorder 22 Mar.  Remember the old adage, ‘Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me’. True courage consists in doing what is right, despite the jeers and sneers of our companions.
1894   G. F. Northall Folk-phrases 23   Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me! Said by one youngster to another calling names.