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Many Continentals think life is a game the English think cricket is a game.
George Mikes
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George Mikes
Age: 75 †
Born: 1912
Born: February 15
Died: 1987
Died: August 30
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Siklos
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Many
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Life
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English
More quotes by George Mikes
THE British are brave people. They can face anything, except reality.
George Mikes
Humility is one of the most repulsive virtues, nearly always false.
George Mikes
On the Continent stray cats are judged individually on their merit-some are loved, some are only respected in England they are universally worshipped as in ancient Egypt.
George Mikes
When a wicked and unworthy subject annoyed the Sultan of Turkey or the Czar of Russia, he had his head cut of without much ceremony but when the same happened in England, the monarch declared : We are not amused.
George Mikes
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
Although the rudiments of snobbery are there, its finer developments are basically alien to the Australian soul - that is, if Australians have a soul many people believe that they are too matter-of-fact and down-to-earth to have such fancy commodities.
George Mikes
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
Australia objects to the mini-skirt not on moral but on economic grounds. Australians are no prudes and the lovely, healthy, sporty Australian girls have no reason to hide their knees and thighs. However, the mini-skirt is disastrous for the wool-trade.
George Mikes
Long before the word Zionism was uttered for the first time, old religious Jews came from all over the world to die in Jerusalem. It is the finest place to die in - it has always been acknowledged. It has a joie de mourir quite its own.
George Mikes
Bad English was the second language of Israel and bad Hebrew, of course, remained the national language.
George Mikes
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
The Japanese are human beings like the rest of us, but they will strongly resent this insinuation.
George Mikes
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.
George Mikes
Tel-Aviv airport is still the only airport in the world where each passenger is met by ten relatives.
George Mikes
The Americans are extremely gadget minded people and American gadgets have a peculiar characteristic: they work.
George Mikes
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
Australians are decent people with the right instincts and they wish everybody well but if all is not well, it is none of their business and they will not lose too much sleep over it. The shrug of the shoulders has become - only temporarily, I daresay - the national gesture of Australia.
George Mikes
People on the Continent either tell you the truth or lie in England they hardly ever lie, but they would not dream of telling you the truth.
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
To be extravagant you need money. True. But you do not need your own money.
George Mikes
