George Mikes Quotes

55 Sourced Quotes

Bad English was the second language of Israel and bad Hebrew, of course, remained the national language.

George Mikes
I firmly believe that humanity consists of three main groups: (1) BBC employees; (2) former BBC employees; (3) future BBC employees.

George Mikes
An average English motorcar could be placed, I believe, without much difficulty, in the luggage-rack of an average American automobile.

George Mikes
It was decided almost two hundred years ago that English should be the language spoken in the United States. It is not known, however, why this decision has not been carried out.

George Mikes
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
We are much more modest. Only the rich are insatiable. No rich man considers himself rich enough; but I consider myself poor enough.

George Mikes
Table manners are usually quite senseless all the world over. The rules are created by a small class of people who ridicule others for eating differently.

George Mikes
Everybody can write; even among professional writers the percentage of those who can write is as high as 12.37. Everybody can write but only a few people can read and that makes the job a shade more difficult.

George Mikes
Three Italians engaged in a friendly chat can make more noise than the average English mass-demonstration in Trafalgar Square.

George Mikes
Continental people have sex life; the English have hot-water bottles.

George Mikes
Our society is a free society. In a free society you are allowed to say what you think. But you are not allowed to think.

George Mikes
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.

George Mikes
Going to bed with women is almost a national hobby with Brazilians; it is rather like cricket in England.

George Mikes
Nobody uses his car in New York, because so many people use it that traffic is congested and unbearably slow.

George Mikes
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
The English have no soul; they have the understatement instead.

George Mikes
You can keep a dog: but it is the cat who keeps people, because cats find humans useful domestic animals.

George Mikes
As a motto, I shall keep to Francis Bacon's advice: "Praise yourself daringly, something always sticks."

George Mikes
Humility is one of the most repulsive virtues, nearly always false.

George Mikes
Remember that those five hundred words an average Englishman uses are far from being the whole vocabulary of the language. You may learn another five hundred and another five thousand and yet another fifty thousand and still you may come across a further fifty thousand you have never heard of before, and nobody else either.

George Mikes
Television puts a stop to crime because all the burglars and robbers, instead of going to burgle and rob, sit at home watching The Lone Ranger, Emergency Ward Ten and Dotto.

George Mikes
According to Victorian novels these girls ought to be desperately unhappy; but they do not read Victorian novels and they are quite content.

George Mikes
You are my darling little fiancée and you will remain my fiancée forever.

George Mikes
The trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink. So a group of the most eminent British scientists put their heads together, and made complicated biological experiments to find a way of spoiling it. To the eternal glory of British science their labour bore fruit.

George Mikes
To be extravagant you need money. True. But you do not need your own money.

George Mikes