Quotes from George Jean Nathan

The path of sound credence is through the thick forest of skepticism.

A life spent in constant labor is a life wasted, save a man be such a fool as to regard a fulsome obituary notice as ample reward.

Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.

Criticism is the art of appraising others at one's own value.

To speak of morals in art is to speak of legislature in sex. Art is the sex of the imagination.

Beauty makes idiots sad and wise men merry.

Love demands infinitely less than friendship.

Bad officials are the ones elected by good citizens who do not vote.

Like everybody else, when I don't know what else to do, I seem to go in for catching colds.

Politics is the diversion of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of more trivial men.

I know many married men, I even know a few happily married men, but I don't know one who wouldn't fall down the first open coal hole running after the first pretty girl who gave him a wink.

Women, as they grow older, rely more and more on cosmetics. Men, as they grow older, rely more and more on a sense of humor.

It is only the cynicism that is born of success that is penetrating and valid.

Criticism is the windows and chandeliers of art: it illuminates the enveloping darkness in which art might otherwise rest only vaguely discernible, and perhaps altogether unseen.

A ready way to lose your friend is to lend him money. Another equally ready way to lose him is to refuse to lend him money. It is six of one and a half dozen of the other.

An optimist is a fellow who believes a housefly is looking for a way to get out.

Marriage is based on the theory that when man discovers a brand of beer exactly to his taste he should at once throw up his job and go work in the brewery.

Politics is the pursuit of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of more trivial men.

The test of a real comedian is whether you laugh at him before he opens his mouth.

Love is an emotion experienced by the many and enjoyed by the few.

A man reserves his true and deepest love not for the species of woman in whose company he finds himself electrified and enkindled, but for that one in whose company he may feel tenderly drowsy.

What passes for woman's intuition is often nothing more than man's transparency.

A man may be said to love most truly that woman in whose company he can feel drowsy in comfort.

No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched.