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.
George Jean Nathan

A man admires a woman not for what she says, but what she listens to.
George Jean Nathan

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.
George Jean Nathan

A man's wife is his compromise with the illusion of his first sweetheart.
George Jean Nathan

An actor without a playwright is like a hole without a doughnut.
George Jean Nathan

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

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

Beauty makes idiots sad and wise men merry.
George Jean Nathan

Common sense, in so far as it exists, is all for the bourgeoisie. Nonsense is the privilege of the aristocracy. The worries of the world are for the common people.
George Jean Nathan

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


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.
George Jean Nathan

Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness.
George Jean Nathan

I drink to make other people interesting.
George Jean Nathan

I have yet to find a man worth his salt in any direction who did not think of himself first and foremost.
George Jean Nathan

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.
George Jean Nathan

It is also said of me that I now and then contradict myself. Yes, I improve wonderfully as time goes on.
George Jean Nathan

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

Love demands infinitely less than friendship.
George Jean Nathan

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

Love is the emotion that a woman feels always for a poodle dog and sometimes for a man.
George Jean Nathan