A deck of cards. You put the cards on the table to play, and you cut the cards to mix them up, but you don’t eat them. Flowers is another possible answer.
A lemon. It’s a citrus fruit whose juice is acidic and can be used to conduct electricity for motors. A car or other purchase that has problems is known as a lemon and can be expensive to repair. Lemons have a tart flavor but do little harm (unless you get it in a cut, then it hurts like the dickens). The old saying goes, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” (I know, it’s spelled aid not ade but it sounds the same and wouldn’t make any sense the other way. It all works out nicely when the riddle is told instead of read.)
Nipples or teats. Cows have four of them, dogs usually have eight and a human (assuming that’s who’s reading this) has two. Cows milk standing up, dogs often lie down and women usually sit when breastfeeding.
A similar problem can be found in L.A. Graham’s Ingenious Mathematical Problems and Methods with a range of 1 to 9, but the principle remains the same – the numbers with the smallest difference produce the largest product. You start out with the highest two digits, 7 and 6, then attach 5 and 4, putting the smaller of the two digits with the larger number, giving you 74 and 65. The next two highest digits are 3 and 2, giving you 742 and 653. Finally, you add the 1 to the lower number. Page 80 has the details of that solution.
Half-way up the hill, I see thee at last, lying beneath me with thy sounds and sights — A city in the twilight, dim and vast, with smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights.
A pencil. It’s wooden, is covered in paint and the output of a pencil in the form of writing or art can make you laugh or cry. And graphite is the dark part inside.