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When people say England, they sometimes mean Great Britain, sometimes the United Kingdom, sometimes the British Isles, - but never England.
George Mikes
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On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners.
George Mikes
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Many Continentals think life is a game; the English think cricket is a game.
George Mikes
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The world still consists of two clearly divided groups: the English and the foreigners. One group consists of less than 50 million people; the other of 3,950 million. The latter group does not really count.
George Mikes
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An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.
George Mikes
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In England only uneducated people show off their knowledge; nobody quotes Latin or Greek authors in the course of conversation, unless he has never read them.
George Mikes
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As a motto, I shall keep to Francis Bacon's advice: "Praise yourself daringly, something always sticks."
George Mikes
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Travel' is the name of a modern disease which became rampant in themid-fifties and is still spreading. The disease - its scientific name is travelitis furiosus - is carried by a germ called prosperity.
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English humor resembles the Loch Ness Monster in that both are famous but there is a strong suspicion that neither exists. Here the similarity ends: the Loch Ness Monster seems to be a gentle beast and harms no one; English humour is cruel.
George Mikes
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A criminal may improve and become a decent member of society. A foreigner cannot improve. Once a foreigner, always a foreigner. There is no way out for him.
George Mikes
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Going to bed with women is almost a national hobby with Brazilians; it is rather like cricket in England.
George Mikes
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'I don't say a Zionist must be insane,' said President Weizmann, 'but it helps if he is.'
George Mikes
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The English take everything with an exquisite sense of humour. They are only offended if you tell them that they have no sense of humour.
George Mikes
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In England the boy pats his adored one on the back and says softly, "I don't object, you know." If he is quite mad with passion, he may add: "I rather fancy you, in fact.
George Mikes
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Whatever else an Italian may lack, he has an Ego. Sometimes two. It is nice to think that even the poorest Italian may possess two Egos while even the richest Englishman, as a rule, has none.
George Mikes
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In England it is bad manners to be clever, to assert something confidently. It may be your own personal view that two and two make four, but you must not state it in a self-assured way, because this is a democratic country and others may be of a different opinion.
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On the Continent there is one topic which should be avoided-the weather; in England, if you do not repeat the phrase "Lovely day, isn't it?" at least two hundred times a day, you are considered a bit dull.
George Mikes
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Television is of great educational value. It teaches you while still young how to (a) kill, (b) rob, (c) embezzle, (d) shoot, (e) poison, and, generally speaking, (f) how to grow up into a Wild West outlaw or gangster by the time you leave school.
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Bargaining is a repulsive habit; compromise is one of the highest human virtues - the difference between the two being that the first is practised on the Continent, the latter in Great Britain.
George Mikes
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An average English motorcar could be placed, I believe, without much difficulty, in the luggage-rack of an average American automobile.
George Mikes
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I said in my earlier book, and find no reason for retracting my statement, that the famous Jewish sense of humour got lost in transit to Israel.
George Mikes
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If it is gay, ribald and lascivious night-life you are after, Israel is not the place for you. The night clubs you do find are nearer in spirit to a YMCA than to dens of iniquity.
George Mikes
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Japan suffered terribly from the atomic bomb but never adopted a pose of moral superiority, implying: 'We would never have done it!' The Japanese know perfectly well they would have used it had they had it. They accept the idea that war is war; they give no quarter and accept none. Total war, they recognize, knows no Queensberry Rules. If you develop a devastating new weapon during a total war, you use it; you do not put it into the War Museum.
George Mikes
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Israelis keep teaching you your own business. God knows everything but the Israelis know everything better.
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Tel-Aviv airport is still the only airport in the world where each passenger is met by ten relatives.
George Mikes
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Quote of the day
Only let the North exert as much moral influence over the South, as the South has exerted demoralizing influence over the North, and slavery would die amid the flame of Christian remonstrance, and faithful rebuke, and holy indignation
Angelina Grimké
George Mikes
Born:
February 15, 1912
Died:
August 30, 1987
(aged 75)
Bio:
George Mikes was a Hungarian-born British author best known for his humorous commentaries on various countries.
Known for:
How to be an Alien (1946)
How to Be a Brit (1966)
English humour for beginners (1980)
The Land of the Rising Yen (1970)
How To Be Decadent (1977)
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