George Mikes Funny Quotes

Quotes about: Funny

• 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

  Funny, Humorous, America

• 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

  Funny, Humorous, Cutting

  George Mikes (1986). “How to be a Brit: The Classic Bestselling Guide”, p.46, Penguin UK

• 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

  Funny, Girl, Humor

• I asked many friends if Australian anti-intellectualism was still a living force and they all told me it was. If you are above average intelligence, hide this embarrassing fact.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humor, Average

• 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

  Funny, Growing Up, Educational

  George Mikes (1986). “How to be a Brit: The Classic Bestselling Guide”, p.142, Penguin UK

• Japan suffered terribly from the atomic bomb but never adopted a pose of moral superiority, implying: 'We would never have done it!' The Japanese know perfectly well they would have used it had they had it. They accept the idea that war is war; they give no quarter and accept none. Total war, they recognize, knows no Queensberry Rules. If you develop a devastating new weapon during a total war, you use it; you do not put it into the War Museum.

  George Mikes

  Funny, War, Museums

  George Mikes (1970). “The land of the rising yen: Japan”, Harvard Common Press

• Continental people have a sex life; the English have hot-water bottles.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Sex, Water Bottles

  How to Be an Alien (1946)

• 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

  Funny, Humorous, Rights

  George Mikes (1959). “How to scrape skies: the United States explored, rediscovered and explained”

• Israelis keep teaching you your own business. God knows everything but the Israelis know everything better.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humorous, Teaching

  George Mikes (1969). “Coat of Many Colors: Israel”

• 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

  Funny, Humorous, Dirty

  George Mikes (1970). “The land of the rising yen: Japan”, Harvard Common Press

• The English have no soul; they have the understatement instead.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humorous, Soul

  George Mikes (1973). “How to be an Alien: A Handbook for Beginners and Advanced Pupils”, Penguin UK

• 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

  Funny, Humorous, Gay

• Nobody uses his car in New York, because so many people use it that traffic is congested and unbearably slow.

  George Mikes

  Funny, New York, Humorous

  George Mikes (1959). “How to scrape skies: the United States explored, rediscovered and explained”

• 'I don't say a Zionist must be insane,' said President Weizmann, 'but it helps if he is.'

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humorous, Israel

  George Mikes (1969). “The Prophet Motive: Israel Today and Tomorrow”

• 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

  Funny, Sports, Humorous

• The British suffer from a most unfortunate superiority complex - unjustified even under Victoria and most certainly hopelessly out-of-date today.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humorous, Suffering

• Bad English was the second language of Israel and bad Hebrew, of course, remained the national language.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humorous, Israel

  George Mikes (1969). “The Prophet Motive: Israel Today and Tomorrow”

• Was he joking? Was he being sarcastic? Aggressive? Impertinent? Or just courteous? There was no telling from his impassive face. What a country, he thought despairingly. In Russia you always knew. If a man made a stern face he was threatening; if he was laughing uproariously, he was joking.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Sarcastic, Country

• 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.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Baseball, Strong

  George Mikes (1959). “How to scrape skies: the United States explored, rediscovered and explained”

• The British are proud of their ability to create a muddle and then muddle through all difficulties. I must shake the British pride: muddle is not an exclusively British institution. Read descriptions, for instance, of the over-organized, wonderfully systematic and "thorough" German war machine during the last war.

  George Mikes

  Funny, War, Humorous

• 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

  Funny, Country, Humorous

  George Mikes (1969). “The Prophet Motive: Israel Today and Tomorrow”

• In Moscow they do not pay much attention to the living but keep their cemeteries in a splendid state.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humorous, Russia

• The Americans are extremely gadget minded people and American gadgets have a peculiar characteristic: they work.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humorous, America

  George Mikes (1959). “How to scrape skies: the United States explored, rediscovered and explained”

• Tel-Aviv airport is still the only airport in the world where each passenger is met by ten relatives.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humorous, Airports

  George Mikes (1969). “Coat of Many Colors: Israel”

• 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

  Funny, Religious, Humorous

  George Mikes (1969). “The Prophet Motive: Israel Today and Tomorrow”

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