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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.

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
Decent
Members
Society
Foreigner
Cannot
Foreigners
Become
Criminal
May
Member
Way
Improve
Always
Criminals

More quotes by George Mikes

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The Japanese are human beings like the rest of us, but they will strongly resent this insinuation.
George Mikes
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If it is gay, ribald and lascivious night-life you are after, Israel is not the place for you. The night clubs you do find are nearer in spirit to a YMCA than to dens of iniquity.
George Mikes
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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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On the Continent people have good food in England people have good table manners.
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The man who is not afraid of danger is not a hero, but a psychopath.
George Mikes
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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
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To have created a Welfare State was a great achievement but we must go on to create a Welfare Planet.
George Mikes
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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suffer from a most unfortunate superiority complex - unjustified even under Victoria and most certainly hopelessly out-of-date today.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
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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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Humility is one of the most repulsive virtues, nearly always false.
George Mikes
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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.
George Mikes
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Tel-Aviv airport is still the only airport in the world where each passenger is met by ten relatives.
George Mikes
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The country has always been governed by a coalition but today it is governed by a so-called Grand Coalition which is a more polite word for all and sundry.
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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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
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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
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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.
George Mikes
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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.
George Mikes
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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.
George Mikes
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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.
George Mikes