Quote

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

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George Mikes
Age: 75 †
Born: 1912
Born: February 15
Died: 1987
Died: August 30
Author
Biographer
Journalist
Writer
Siklos
Happened
Wicked
Monarchs
Funny
Humorous
Amused
Without
Russia
Declared
Much
Subject
Turkeys
England
Turkey
Czar
Subjects
Annoyed
Sultan
Cutting
Unworthy
Czars
Head
Ceremony
Monarch

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On the Continent people have good food in England people have good table manners.
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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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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.
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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.
George Mikes
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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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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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The Americans are extremely gadget minded people and American gadgets have a peculiar characteristic: they work.
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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.
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The Japanese are human beings like the rest of us, but they will strongly resent this insinuation.
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Once you start buying first aid kits you start having accidents.
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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.
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To have created a Welfare State was a great achievement but we must go on to create a Welfare Planet.
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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.
George Mikes
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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
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Japan is, you often feel, an improved version of the United States.
George Mikes
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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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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.
George Mikes
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In Moscow they do not pay much attention to the living but keep their cemeteries in a splendid state.
George Mikes
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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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The British suffer from a most unfortunate superiority complex - unjustified even under Victoria and most certainly hopelessly out-of-date today.
George Mikes