Quote

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

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
Wish
National
Temporarily
Business
None
Gesture
Become
Humor
Instincts
Wells
Lose
Gestures
Well
Loses
Australia
Right
Sleep
Decent
Much
Everybody
Shoulders
Shrug
People
Funny
Instinct
Australians

More quotes by George Mikes

Image
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.
George Mikes
Image
Tel-Aviv airport is still the only airport in the world where each passenger is met by ten relatives.
George Mikes
Image
Bad English was the second language of Israel and bad Hebrew, of course, remained the national language.
George Mikes
Image
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.
George Mikes
Image
The Americans are extremely gadget minded people and American gadgets have a peculiar characteristic: they work.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
'I don't say a Zionist must be insane,' said President Weizmann, 'but it helps if he is.'
George Mikes
Image
Humility is one of the most repulsive virtues, nearly always false.
George Mikes
Image
Israelis keep teaching you your own business. God knows everything but the Israelis know everything better.
George Mikes
Image
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
Image
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.
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
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