Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by George Mikes

Image
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
Image
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.
George Mikes
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
George Mikes
Image
You can keep a dog: but it is the cat who keeps people, because cats find humans useful domestic animals.
George Mikes
Image
Bad English was the second language of Israel and bad Hebrew, of course, remained the national language.
George Mikes
Image
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
Image
THE British are brave people. They can face anything, except reality.
George Mikes
Image
A dog will flatter you but you have to flatter the cat.
George Mikes
Image
I said in my earlier book, and find no reason for retracting my statement, that the famous Jewish sense of humour got lost in transit to Israel.
George Mikes
Image
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
Image
The man who is not afraid of danger is not a hero, but a psychopath.
George Mikes
Image
The British suffer from a most unfortunate superiority complex - unjustified even under Victoria and most certainly hopelessly out-of-date today.
George Mikes
Image
On the Continent people have good food in England people have good table manners.
George Mikes
Image
The Japanese are human beings like the rest of us, but they will strongly resent this insinuation.
George Mikes
Image
Continental people have a sex life the English have hot-water bottles.
George Mikes
Image
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
Image
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.
George Mikes
Image
Tel-Aviv airport is still the only airport in the world where each passenger is met by ten relatives.
George Mikes