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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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George Mikes
Age: 75 †
Born: 1912
Born: February 15
Died: 1987
Died: August 30
Author
Biographer
Journalist
Writer
Siklos
Human
Habit
Continent
Humans
Highest
Negotiation
First
Difference
Continents
Great
Differences
Virtues
Virtue
Britain
Funny
Latter
Practised
Two
Compromise
Repulsive
Firsts
Humorous
Bargaining

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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.
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Humility is one of the most repulsive virtues, nearly always false.
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'I don't say a Zionist must be insane,' said President Weizmann, 'but it helps if he is.'
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I have often thought that the aim of port is to give you a good and durable hangover, so that during the next day you should be reminded of the splendid occasion the night before.
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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.
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Bad English was the second language of Israel and bad Hebrew, of course, remained the national language.
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Continental people have a sex life the English have hot-water bottles.
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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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Tel-Aviv airport is still the only airport in the world where each passenger is met by ten relatives.
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The poor Americans are so busy defending the rights of Hindus in Pakistan, Moslems in India, Jews in Palestine, Koreans in Japan, Italians in Yugoslavia and Hungarians in Czechoslovakia that they simply cannot give a thought to Negroes in the United States.
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On the Continent people have good food in England people have good table manners.
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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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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.
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A great deal of the pupils time was spent going through, once again, the History of the Communist (Bolshevik) Party of the Soviet Union. He had learnt it at elementary school at secondary school at his sports club at the Komsomol at the university at a folk dancing course at the chess-club.
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Japan is, you often feel, an improved version of the United States.
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A dog will flatter you but you have to flatter the cat.
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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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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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Israelis keep teaching you your own business. God knows everything but the Israelis know everything better.
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You can keep a dog: but it is the cat who keeps people, because cats find humans useful domestic animals.
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