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

— George Jean Nathan

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More quotes by George Jean Nathan

I have no patriotism, for patriotism, as I see it, is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.

No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched.

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

Materia Critica (1924)

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

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

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Wit's an unruly engine, wildly striking
Sometimes a friend, sometimes the engineer.

George Herbert The Temple (1633)

A tragedy can never suffer by delay: a comedy may, because the allusions or the manners represented in it maybe temporary.

Horace Walpole

The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel– a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.

Horace Walpole

Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.

Karl Barth The Harper Book of Quotations (1993)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: George Jean Nathan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.