“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

How to Be an Alien: A Handbook for Beginners and More Advanced Pupils (1946)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Aug. 31, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink. So a group of the most eminent British scientists pu…" by George Mikes?

George Mikes photo

George Mikes7

Hungarian-born British author 1912–1987

Related quotes

“The good doctor put a spoon of tea into my honey." "You're drinking tea a honey badger made," Jim said. "What did you expect?”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

“I propose that 100,000 degenerate Britons should be forcibly sterilized and others put in labour camps to halt the decline of the British race.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

As Home Secretary in a 1910 Departmental Paper. The original document is in the collection of Asquith's papers at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Also quoted in Clive Ponting, "Churchill" (Sinclair Stevenson 1994).
Early career years (1898–1929)

“The most remarkable discovery made by scientists is science itself.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

Source: The Creative Process, 1958, p. 97 Partly cited in: Daniel C. Schlenof. " 50 Years Ago: Greatest Scientific Discovery is Science Itself http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/50-100-150-scientific-creativity/," in Scientific American, Aug. 18, 2008. <br class="br">Context: The most remarkable discovery made by scientists is science itself. The discovery must be compared in importance with the invention of cave-painting and of writing. Like these earlier human creations, science is an attempt to control our surroundings by entering into them and understanding them from inside. And like them, science has surely made a critical step in human development which cannot be reversed. We cannot conceive a future society without science. I have used three words to describe these far - reaching changes : discovery, invention and creation. There are contexts in which one of these words is more appropriate than the others.

“Through most of colonial history, inhabitants of the 13 colonies were loyal subjects of the British crown — resourceful, dedicated and as the Third Duchess of Kent… was fond of saying, "Some tea-drinkin' motherfuckahs." In fact, whenever the subject of the New World was mentioned, the Duchess could always be counted on for a wistful head-shake and a hearty "Motherfuckahs love that motherfuckin' tea."”

Jon Stewart book America

America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction (2004)

“It is, I reckon, difficult to conceive of a single area of government policy that is at once so important for each of us, so catastrophically complicated, so insanely unjust, so obscenely ineffective, and has been quite so comprehensively cocked up by successive administratations as the British pension system.”

Jon Henley British journalist

The Guardian, 2008-12-19, section g2, page 5.

“Tea. I find that both settles the stomach and concentrates the mind. Wonderful drink, tea.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“The Labour Party is a thoroughly bourgeois party, because, although made up of workers, it is led by reactionaries, and the worst kind of reactionaries at that, who act quite in the spirit of the bourgeoisie. It is an organisation of the bourgeoisie, which exists to systematically dupe the workers with the aid of the British Noskes and Scheidemanns.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Collected Works, Vol. 31, pp. 213–63.
Collected Works

“An illegal monument to the British talent for binge drinking and vandalising public property.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Cut It Out (2004)

“The seed buried in the ground produces fruit, and in turn this is planted. Thus the harvest is multiplied. So the death of Christ on the cross of Calvary will bear fruit unto eternal life. The contemplation of this sacrifice will be the glory of those who, as the fruit of it, will live through the eternal ages.”

Ellen G. White book The Desire of Ages

The Desire of Ages, Ch. 68 http://www.whiteestate.org/books/da/da68.html, p. 623 <br class="br">Conflict of the Ages series

“Science wants the fruits of science, and it does not tolerate much doubt about the goodness of those fruits. … Scientists had a bad conscience about making the atom bomb, it’s fair to say, but their doubts were not prompted, still less endorsed by their science.”

Harvey Mansfield (1932) Author, professor

How to Understand Politics: What the Humanities Can Say to Science (2007)

Related topics