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Top George Mikes Quotes

Browse top 34 most favorite famous quotes and sayings by George Mikes.

Favorite George Mikes Quotes

1. "You can keep a dog; but it is the cat who keeps people, because cats find humans useful domestic animals." ~ George Mikes
2. "THE British are brave people. They can face anything, except reality." ~ George Mikes
3. "Q. Why don't they work harder?A. They just don't like hard work. The Germans have a reputation for hard work, so they like to keep it up. The British find it boring." ~ George Mikes
4. "Mr S. got angry.‘Yes, I do have a son. He's a good-for-nothing. A dead loss.'I couldn't ask which prison he was in, so I put it more tactfully: ‘What is he doing?'He sighed deeply: ‘He's a professor of mathematics at London University." ~ George Mikes
5. "Can you tell the difference between our margarine and our hair tonic? WE can't." ~ George Mikes
6. "IN my early days there were stories about funny refugees murdering the English language. A refugee woman goes to the greengrocer to buy red oranges (I mean red inside), very popular on the Continent and called blood oranges.‘I want two pounds of bloody oranges.'‘What sort of oranges, dear?' asked the greengrocer, a little puzzled.‘Bloody oranges.'‘Hm...' He thinks. ‘I see. For juice?'‘Yes, we are.'Another story dates from two years later. By that time the paterfamilias — the orange-buying lady's husband — has become terribly, terribly English. He meets an old friend in Regents Park, and instead of talking to him in good German, softly, he greets him in English, loudly.‘Hallo, Weinstock.... Lovely day, isn't it? Spring in the air.'‘Why should I?" ~ George Mikes
7. "Before you are admitted to British citizenship you are not even considered a natural human being.I looked up the word natural (na'tural) in the Pocket Oxford Dictionary (p. 251); it says: Of or according to or provided by nature, physically existing, innate, instinctive, normal, not miraculous or spiritual or artificial or conventional.... Note that before you obtain British citizenship, they simply doubt that you are provided by nature." ~ George Mikes
8. "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
9. "The first aim of a British film producer should be to teach Hollywood a lesson. Do not be misled, however, by the examples of Henry V or Pygmalion, which tend to prove that excellent films can be made of great plays without changing the out-of-date words of Shakespeare and the un-film-like dialogues of Shaw by ten ‘experts' who really know better." ~ George Mikes
10. "Q. Why don't the British panic?A. They do, but very quietly. It is impossible for the naked eye to tell their panic from their ecstasy." ~ George Mikes
11. "If he stretches out his hand in order to shake yours, you must not accept it. Smile vaguely, and as soon as he gives up the hope of shaking you by the hand, you stretch out your own hand and try to catch his in vain. This game is repeated until the greater part of the afternoon or evening has elapsed. It is extremely likely that this will be the most amusing part of the afternoon or evening, anyway." ~ George Mikes
12. "While all this goes on, the English remain staunch believers in equality. Equality is a notion the English have given to humanity. Equality means that you are just as good as the next man but the next man is not half as good as you are." ~ George Mikes
13. "Only motorists can answer this puzzling question: What are taxis for? A simple pedestrian knows that they are certainly not there to carry passengers.Taxis, in fact, are a Christian institution. They are here to teach drivers modesty and humility. They teach us never to be over-confident; they remind us that we never can tell what the next moment will bring for us, whether we shall be able to drive on or a taxi will bump into us from the back or the side. .. and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life' (Deut., chapter 28, verse 66)" ~ George Mikes
14. "The worst kind of soul is the great Slav soul. People who suffer from it are usually very deep thinkers. They may say things like this: ‘Sometimes I am so merry and sometimes I am so sad. Can you explain why?' (You cannot, do not try.) Or they may say: ‘I am so mysterious.... I sometimes wish I were somewhere else than where I am.' (Do not say: ‘I wish you were.') Or ‘When I am alone in a forest at night-time and jump from one tree to another, I often think that life is so strange." ~ George Mikes
15. "I have been told that my above-described theory is all wrong and is only due to my Central European conceit, because the English do not care for the opinion of foreigners. In every other country, it has been explained, people just build streets and towns following their own common sense. England is the only country of the world where there is a Ministry of Town and Country Planning. That is the real reason for the muddle." ~ George Mikes
16. "The final reason is purely practical and based on sound economic assessment. Whether we work or not makes hardly any difference. So it is only sensible to save electricity, coal, administration, fares and effort." ~ George Mikes
17. "If a continental youth wants to declare his love to a girl, he kneels down, tells her that she is the sweetest, the most charming and ravishing person in the world, that she has something in her, something peculiar and individual which only a few hundred thousand other women have and that he would be unable to live one more minute without her. Often, to give a little more emphasis to the statement, he shoots himself on the spot. This is a normal, week-day declaration of love in the more temperamental continental countries. In England the boy pats his adored one on the back and says softly: ‘I don't object to you, you know.' If he is quite mad with passion, he may add: ‘I rather fancy you, in fact." ~ George Mikes
18. "Overstatement, too, plays a considerable part in English social life. This takes mostly the form of someone remarking: ‘I say…' and then keeping silent for three days on end." ~ George Mikes
19. "Remember: If you go for a walk with a friend in England, don't say a single word for hours; if you go for a walk with your dog, talk to it all the time." ~ George Mikes
20. "Once this refreshing, aromatic, oriental beverage was successfully transformed into colourless and tasteless gargling-water, it suddenly became the national drink of Great Britain and Ireland — still retaining, indeed usurping, the high-sounding title of tea" ~ George Mikes
21. "It is so much nicer to ask, when someone speaks of Barbados, Banska Bystrica or Fiji:‘Oh those little islands.... Are they British?'(They usually are.)" ~ George Mikes
22. "There are some occasions when you must not refuse a cup of tea, otherwise you are judged an exotic and barbarous bird without any hope of ever being able to take your place in civilised society.If you are invited to an English home, at five o'clock in the morning you get a cup of tea. It is either brought in by a heartily smiling hostess or an almost malevolently silent maid." ~ George Mikes
23. "Then you have tea for breakfast; then you have tea at eleven o'clock in the morning; then after lunch; then you have tea for tea; then after supper; and again at eleven o'clock at night.You must not refuse any additional cups of tea under the following circumstances: if it is hot; if it is cold; if you are tired; if anybody thinks that you might be tired; if you are nervous; if you are gay; before you go out; if you are out; if you have just returned home; if you feel like it; if you do not feel like it; if you have had no tea for some time; if you have just had a cup." ~ George Mikes
24. "When some years ago, knowing ten words of English and using them all wrong, I applied for a translator's job, my would-be employer (or would-be-not-employer) softly remarked: ‘I am afraid your English is somewhat unorthodox.' This translated into any continental language would mean: EMPLOYER (to the commissionaire): ‘Jean, kick this gentleman down the steps!" ~ George Mikes
25. "Terribly rude expressions (if pronounced grimly) are: ‘I am afraid that…' 'unless...' ‘nevertheless…' ‘How queer...' and ‘I am sorry, but…'It is true that quite often you can hear remarks like: ‘You'd better see that you get out of here!‘ Or ‘Shut your big mouth!‘ Or ‘Dirty pig!‘ etc. These remarks are very un-English and are the results of foreign influence. (Dating back, however, to the era of the Danish invasion.)" ~ George Mikes
26. "An average English house combines all the curses of civilisation with the vicissitudes of life in the open. It is all right to have windows, but you must not have double windows because double windows would indeed stop the wind from blowing right into the room, and after all, you must be fair and give the wind a chance. It is all right to have central heating in an English home, except the bath room, because that is the only place where you are naked and wet at the same time, and you must give British germs a fair chance." ~ George Mikes
27. "Zebra crossings have produced a peculiar new type of mentality in an increasing number of people. This has its new correlated freedom: THE RIGHT TO ZEBRA-CROSS. If Freud were still alive he would certainly be able to define this new psychological trait, this zebra-complex. For those afflicted, life is simply a huge zebra-crossing: as soon as they step into the arena they expect all movement to come to a standstill and give way to them. In very bad cases the patient expects people to watch him admiringly and wave to him with friendly smiles." ~ George Mikes
28. "On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners." ~ George Mikes
29. "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
30. "The world still consists of two clearly divided groups: the English and the foreigners. One group consists of less than 50 million people; the other of 3,950 million. The latter group does not really count." ~ George Mikes
31. "Many Continentals think life is a game; the English think cricket is a game." ~ George Mikes
32. "An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one." ~ George Mikes
33. "When people say England, they sometimes mean Great Britain, sometimes the United Kingdom, sometimes the British Isles, - but never England." ~ George Mikes
34. "5. Television is of great educational value. It teaches you while still really 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.6. Television puts a stop to crime because all the burglars and robbers, instead of going to burgle and rob, sit at home watching The Lone Ranger, Emergency Ward Ten and Dotto." ~ George Mikes

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Today's Quote

A person who keeps always his profile down-to-earth doesn't have to worry with those who surround or who to go around for he is likely to get only those who are of his ilk and the real worth on the ground."
Author: Anuj Somany

What Did George Mikes Talk About?

English
Con
Hey
British
Hen
Land
Ear
Here
Thin
Tea
Era
Lit
Use
Ally
Son
Ten
Able
Wit
Thou
End
Word
Less
King
Ring
Side
Sin
Tell
Wing
Win
Mean
Cat
Act
Sing
Air
Hum
Cause
Foreign
Teach
Each
Low
Mark
Body
Ask
Another
Hear
Sit
May
Night
Often
Old

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