Author Profile
John Keegan
1934 – 2012 • English • Historian
23
Total Quotes
Collected Meditations
Showing 23 quotesIf Wellington epitomizes the English gentleman, Eisenhower epitomizes the natural American gentleman.— John Keegan
I think that black Africa is extremely terrifying. Black Africa can become a maelstrom of warring tribes without the outside world needing to feel the need to do anything about it.— John Keegan
I think Americans like the practical; they like the human. And I like both those things myself, and I try and put them into my books.— John Keegan
The Islam of the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th century was a poor thing. Nobody bothered about it. Islam was that funny sort of pure system of beliefs that depressed people in the Middle East held as their religion.— John Keegan
I think to be shot in a mountain valley somewhere or other is altogether less glorious than crashing an airliner into a skyscraper.— John Keegan
Well, if they are trying to kill you, on the whole they're the people you have to kill, aren't they?— John Keegan
Men killing other men really is an extraordinary phenomenon. Why does it happen? And how long has it gone on? And have the motives changed?— John Keegan
I don't think that what's going on in Bosnia is political activity. It's partly political, but it's partly atavistic as well.— John Keegan
The great men of power who seek to change the nations they belong to usually are pretty terrible people.— John Keegan
The revival of Islam dates from the early years of the 20th century. It was brought about by their humiliation, by their sense of how low they'd fallen compared with the West.— John Keegan
The leader of men in warfare can show himself to his followers only through a mask, a mask that he must make for himself, but a mask made in such form as will mark him to men of his time and place as the leader they want and need.— John Keegan
There are certain wicked people in the world that you can't deal with except by force.— John Keegan
It's commonly said that people who've been ill in childhood and who've had an upset education never really regret that they do. It means that you don't look at the world in the way that other people do, and if you were inclined to be a writer, that's a help.— John Keegan