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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 is, you often feel, an improved version of the United States.
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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Israel also deprived the world of its chance of shedding tears of genuine sympathy over her destruction. The world resents this; it likes to feel noble and sympathetic.
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It is often said that the Japanese are extremely clean at home, or inside any house or office, but dirty and untidy outside. 'Go and look at a railway station,' I was told, 'and you'll be horrified.' I went and was horrified; horrified by the cleanliness of the place.
George Mikes
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Bad English was the second language of Israel and bad Hebrew, of course, remained the national language.
George Mikes
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I firmly believe that humanity consists of three main groups: (1) BBC employees; (2) former BBC employees; (3) future BBC employees.
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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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
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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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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
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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
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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
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Three Italians engaged in a friendly chat can make more noise than the average English mass-demonstration in Trafalgar Square.
George Mikes
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Continental people have sex life; the English have hot-water bottles.
George Mikes
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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
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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.
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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Nobody uses his car in New York, because so many people use it that traffic is congested and unbearably slow.
George Mikes
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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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The English have no soul; they have the understatement instead.
George Mikes
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You can keep a dog: but it is the cat who keeps people, because cats find humans useful domestic animals.
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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Humility is one of the most repulsive virtues, nearly always false.
George Mikes
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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
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Quote of the day
Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.
Robert F. Kennedy
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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