Quote

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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George Mikes
Age: 75 †
Born: 1912
Born: February 15
Died: 1987
Died: August 30
Author
Biographer
Journalist
Writer
Siklos
Come
Language
Hundred
Whole
Use
Nobody
Englishman
Never
Else
Thousand
Englishmen
Another
Either
Vocabulary
Stills
Heard
Uses
Remember
Five
Fifty
Still
Words
Average
May
Learn
Across

More quotes by George Mikes

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Humility is one of the most repulsive virtues, nearly always false.
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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.
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The Americans are extremely gadget minded people and American gadgets have a peculiar characteristic: they work.
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They (Americans) have their national game, baseball - which is cricket played with a strong American accent - and they have a national language, entirely their own, unlike any other language spoken on the earth.
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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.
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Once you start buying first aid kits you start having accidents.
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Japan is, you often feel, an improved version of the United States.
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It is great fun dying in the United States of America. It is great fun first of all for the undertakers who make a wonderful living out of it but also for the deceased who suddenly becomes the centre of attention and fuss.
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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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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.
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Jokes are better than war. Even the most aggressive jokes are better than the least aggressive wars. Even the longest jokes are better than the shortest wars.
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Tel-Aviv airport is still the only airport in the world where each passenger is met by ten relatives.
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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.
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The man who is not afraid of danger is not a hero, but a psychopath.
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The country has always been governed by a coalition but today it is governed by a so-called Grand Coalition which is a more polite word for all and sundry.
George Mikes
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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.
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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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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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A dog will flatter you but you have to flatter the cat.
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The Japanese are human beings like the rest of us, but they will strongly resent this insinuation.
George Mikes