British sense of nationality, or pride
a sense of history and tradition..
They have no clue on how to dress
His movements are stiff and his look is cold. As for the woman, she possesses the same frame as the man, and her extremities suffer from this. She does not have the finesse of the Latin women.
The Englishwoman may not be endowed with feminine grace, but she is not short of aptitudes for literature and the sciences. As for the man, he has a mainly positive spirit.
the Englishman is a colonizer and knows how to benefit from his remote possessions. To succeed more quickly, he prefers using strength rather than persuasion
the Englishman has a patriotism that withstands any test. He is persevering when it is a question of his own affairs, and becomes tenacious when they are those of his country
When it comes to taking your clothes off, Germans are an uninhibited bunch, beaten perhaps only by the Swedes.
Business tends to be more formal in Germany than in the United States.
the Dutchman is, by nature, frank, honest, good and compassionate, at the same time as being persevering and hard-working.
What the North German seeks, is the positive. With his love of wellbeing, he wants something solid and durable. Art and elegance play only a very unobtrusive role in his existence
The English police officer is there to reassure people, to help them and, of course, to take care of their safety. In France this is not always the case.
The English police officer is there to reassure people, to help them and, of course, to take care of their safety. In France this is not always the case.
Germans often lower their voice, not raise it, in mildly heated moments
If John Wayne had been German, he would have intently analysed the pupils of his interlocutors during those big moments, not gazed meaningfully at the horizon.
Germans are not prudish
.. only 51% of all Germans believed in God
German drivers are known for their aggressive road behaviour.
Visual appearance is important to the French
Anglo-Saxons [are] brought up in the belief that it's improper to state clearly what you mean or feel.
A remarkably lucid people, they are friendly, sane, enthusiastic, democratic in the widest sense of the word, and more awake than anyone in Europe
Spaniards love children
Spaniards are notoriously late diners
the traffic cops have a reputation for upright honesty.
The Martha side of the English character expresses itself in such phrases as 'you must live within your means',Socialism, is a creed of Mary . It believes in 'casting bread on the waters', trusting in human decency...
40% of men reportedly do no housework at all
In Frankfort everybody wears clean clothes, and I think we noticed that this strange thing was the case in Hamburg, too, and in the villages along the road.
There seems to be no chilly distance existing between the German students and the professor
It seemed right and proper that students should indulge in dogs; but everybody else had them, too--old men and young ones, old women and nice young ladies.
He has spent nine years in the gymnasium, under a system which allowed him no freedom, but vigorously compelled him to work like a slave.
I had seen the heads and faces of ten youths gashed in every direction by the keen two-edged blades, and yet had not seen a victim wince, nor heard a moan
French calmness and English calmness have points of difference
There are some German words which are singularly and powerfully effective. For instance, those which describe lowly, peaceful, and affectionate home life;
A German daily is the slowest and saddest and dreariest of the inventions of man. Our own dailies infuriate the reader, pretty often; the German daily only stupefies him.
In France, all is clockwork, all is order. They make no mistakes. Every third man wears a uniform..
the happiest regulation in French railway government is--thirty minutes to dinner!
the invention of new methods of discommoding and snubbing you, as is very often the main employment of that exceedingly self-satisfied monarch, the railroad conductor of America.
the rigid subjection to law and order which we behold about us everywhere.
A true Italian, he perfectly understood the dramatic gesture which so appeals to a nation with an operatic tradition.
we found that survivor guilt broadly defined was significantly associated with acts of altruism towards strangers in 1) the Asian American sample in our population, and 2) the Middle Eastern American sample.
Imagine a poor Frenchman ignorantly intruding upon a public rostrum sacred to some six-penny dignitary in America. The police would scare him to death first with a storm of their elegant blasphemy..
We are measurably superior to the French in some things, but they are immeasurably our betters in others.
In Marseilles they make half the fancy toilet soap we consume in America, but the Marseillaise only have a vague theoretical idea of its use, which they have obtained from books of travel..
The English know how to travel comfortably, and they carry soap with them; other foreigners do not use the article.
There is character in them--Russian character--which is politeness itself, and the genuine article. The French are polite, but it is often mere ceremonious politeness.
A Russian imbues his polite things with a heartiness, both of phrase and expression, that compels belief in their sincerity.
We laugh at Englishmen, when we are at home, for sticking so sturdily to their national ways and customs
We were not a nightmare here, where were civilization and intelligence in place of Spanish and Italian superstition, dirt and dread of cholera.
.. Spanish and Italian superstition, dirt and dread of cholera.
They are as dressy and as tasteful and as graceful as they could possibly be without being angels.
some very French attitudes, including a yearning for global principles and a deep, sometimes insufficiently critical, appreciation for originality.
Smiling is treated only with indifference here. It will not be perceived as a greeting or as an indication of approval.
The most important characteristics of French business behavior are its emphasis on courtesy, and a certain formality
It boils down to a control-freak mentality in which governments have to feel they are in control of everything, even if, in reality, they are not.
Enclosed within a homogenous physical area, its inhabitants feel solidarity among themselves.
She has lots of spirit, but doesn't follow through her ideas. And that appears to be true throughout her history.
By temperament.. the Frenchman is first and foremost a peasant. .. The peasant background acts as a brake.. and chivalry as the motor.
The "Français moyen" (average Frenchman) is extraverted: a man of society, often a man of the world, with all the characteristic traits of a cheerful optimist. He's practical, resourceful. He is adaptable, conceives quickly..
.. the Frenchman is wary of confused dreams and dim, blurry depths. Afraid of being duped, he pretends to take nothing seriously, starting with himself. Wanting to be lucid, he tends to always bring in logic and clarity ..
spelling in particular is the subject of a veritable cult in France .. French is an analytical language and appropriate for abstraction .. It loves short, simple words which carry ideas more than images.
Preciousness, "an extreme form of the need to give pleasure" (D.Mornet) is a modern resurgence of the spirit of courtesy, prepared by the hôtel de Rambouillet, flourishing between 1650 and 1660
rationalism is the guiding light of French thought, encouraging the taste for psychological analysis and kindling a lineage of moralist writers, preoccupied in defining humanism, wisdom, and an "art de vivre".
French opinion is often contradictory: often critical towards authority, but belief in miracles and confidence in the person who appears to be the "man for the job"
French political life has always rested on principles.
Encouraged by their statute-book spirit, the French produced no less than 16 constitutions in 170 years.
The French population is compartmentalised in a hierarchy of layers which are relatively impervious, and upward movements are rare and difficult. Only one working man's son in ten makes it to a supervisory position.
In general, the table is one of the essential preoccupations of the housewife, and one of the principal pleasures of the French.
the French have little taste for uniforms
70% of the French would like to own a house with a garden
The French read a lot
The French love above all cultivated nature, and give the highest importance to culture in the figurative sense, that's to say the assertion of the power of man over nature,
how easy it proved to adapt to a country where ther is no pressure to join groups. The famous French spirit of individualism crops up everywhere, and nowhere more than in the attitude "I do what I want to do".
.. barely finishing one vacation and then immediately planning the next.
"No" does not mean "no" in the way it does in Anglo-Saxon or Germanic countries. .. .. a particularly attractive Latin characteristic of the French - little or no moralizing ..
If you are a self-respecting Frenchman, you get mad.
I am far too Anglo-Saxon to actually enjoy a dispute ..
not only is "being nice" not high on the list of values, but, very frankly, if you are always "nice," you are seen as one big poire (sucker).
The French love to challenge authority. If it is there, it is to be contested
I'm always shocked when a haughty salesperson drives me out of a store.
I know I'm not French because I like to laugh loudly and have fun.
For the past twenty years, every time I open my mouth and say more than two words, people say "Are you American or English?"
Another language difference is the highly developed art of understatement. .. The French speak in negatives rather than positives, so rather than saying the weather is nice, they say it is "pas mauvais"
The French have unwritten codes that are extremely strong and persuasive. Like the Japanese, the French have developed these codes so that no one loses face.
At cocktail parties, I invariably find myself backing into plants or the nearest wall because, as an American, I need more space.
He has been so often deceived that he is wary, and yet he still believes that happiness will come tomorrow. Without this optimism, time and again proved false, he wouldn't have been able to endure his hardships.
The Irishman is thus resourceful - a trait which would be of great help to him when emigrating and being obliged to create his abode in a strange environment - but at home he is readily indolent, living from day to day
he so enjoys dawdling, fishing with rod and line, and chatting.. Yes, he oftens says more than he does, but that makes him cordial and it's enjoyable listening to him.
the politeness of today has its own little merits. It is still the daughter of divine benevolence, and .. it is still the generous French courtesy, the elegant urbanity, that foreigners will always try to imitate.
dignified without pretention, reserved without taciturnity, affable without banality, sufficiently on the outside to be pleasing but never to the point of being vulgar;
our race is so gifted that even ordinary people here need only make a small effort to obtain the coveted title of the perfectly chic man or of femme du monde
In order to deal with an intractable problem, one must not confront, but misdirect. All is well if the problem is someone else's.
It's impossible, you see -- as if the cheese and the dessert were some form of matter/anti-matter
The French way is more complicated.
Only the French would bother to develop and codify such a sauce
Someone who impedes progress and delays action, not necessarily out of malice, but out of some deeply held belief that it's better, when confronted with a choice, not to make one? Well, mes amis, that's France.