Quote

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

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
Funny
Continent
Tell
Continents
Dream
Hardly
Humorous
Truth
Telling
Ever
England
Would
Either
People
Lying

More quotes by George Mikes

Image
Continental people have a sex life the English have hot-water bottles.
George Mikes
Image
Many Continentals think life is a game the English think cricket is a game.
George Mikes
Image
In Moscow they do not pay much attention to the living but keep their cemeteries in a splendid state.
George Mikes
Image
Once you start buying first aid kits you start having accidents.
George Mikes
Image
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
Image
The Art of Conversation could not die in Australia it never lived. Television did not kill it there was nothing there to kill.
George Mikes
Image
A dog will flatter you but you have to flatter the cat.
George Mikes
Image
The man who is not afraid of danger is not a hero, but a psychopath.
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
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
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
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
The British suffer from a most unfortunate superiority complex - unjustified even under Victoria and most certainly hopelessly out-of-date today.
George Mikes
Image
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
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 Americans are extremely gadget minded people and American gadgets have a peculiar characteristic: they work.
George Mikes
Image
THE British are brave people. They can face anything, except reality.
George Mikes
Image
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
Image
Israelis keep teaching you your own business. God knows everything but the Israelis know everything better.
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