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

About George Jean Nathan

George Jean Nathanwas an American drama critic and magazine editor. He worked closely with H. L. Mencken, bringing the literary magazine The Smart Set to prominence as an editor, and co-founding and editing The American Mercury and The American Spectator.

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More quotes from George Jean Nathan

So long as there is one pretty girl left on the stage, the professional undertakers may hold up their burial of the theater.

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched.

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

A man’s wife is his compromise with the illusion of his first sweetheart.

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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.

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

Beauty makes idiots sad and wise men merry.

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

Love demands infinitely less than friendship.

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

I drink to make other people interesting.

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

An actor without a playwright is like a hole without a doughnut.

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

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

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)

Whenever a man encounters a woman in a mood he doesn’t understand, he wants to know if she’s tired.

George Jean Nathan

American drama critic and magazine editor (1882-1958)