John Keegan Quotes

• The written history of the world is largely a history of warfare, because the states within which we live came into existence largely through conquest, civil strife, or struggles for independence.

  John Keegan

  War, Struggle, Independence

  John Keegan (2012). “A History of Warfare”, p.886, Vintage

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• Soldiers, when committed to a task, can't compromise. It's unrelenting devotion to the standards of duty and courage, absolute loyalty to others, not letting the task go until it's been done.

  John Keegan

  Letting Go, Loyalty, Soldier

  "Harry Reid Gave An All-Out Defense Of Obama's Decision To Free Bergdahl On The Senate Floor" by Colin Campbell, www.businessinsider.com. June 4, 2014.

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• There are certain wicked people in the world that you can't deal with except by force

  John Keegan

  People, Wicked, World

  "John Keegan: Soldiers and Pacifists Share the Same Qualities" by Russ Wellen, fpif.org. February 13, 2013.

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• The Second World War is the largest single event in human history, fought across six of the world's seven continents and all it oceans. It killed 50 million human beings, left hundreds of millions of others wounded in mind or body and materially devastated much of the heartland of civilization.

  John Keegan

  War, Ocean, Heart

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• I don't look to find an educated person in the ranks of university graduates, necessarily. Some of the most educated people I know have never been near a university.

  John Keegan

  Inspirational, Funny, Graduation

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• The great men of power who seek to change the nations they belong to usually are pretty terrible people.

  John Keegan

  Men, People, Terrible

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• A civilised man is someone who has discovered something more satisfying than combat.

  John Keegan

  Men, Combat, Satisfying

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• 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

  Men, Leader, Warfare

  John Keegan (1987). “The Mask of Command”, Random House (UK)

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• The great Chinese classics have always said that it's better not to fight; that the clever man achieves his ends without violence; that a battle delayed is better than a battle fought.

  John Keegan

  Clever, Fighting, Men

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• Well, if they are trying to kill you, on the whole they're the people you have to kill, aren't they?

  John Keegan

  People, Trying, Wells

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• Slavery in the modern world implies the absolute deprivation of the individual's liberty, while possession of weapons and mastery of their use are means to the individual's liberation. We do not perceive how a man may be armed and at the same time bereft of his freedom.

  John Keegan

  Mean, Men, Liberty

  John Keegan (2012). “A History of Warfare”, p.94, Vintage

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• 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

  People, Islam, Middle East

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• The historian ought to be an educated person, writing for other educated people about something which they don't know about, but wish to know about in a way that they can understand.

  John Keegan

  Writing, People, History

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• It's a necessary quality of a diplomat or a politician that he will compromise. Uncompromising politicians or diplomats get you into the most terrible trouble.

  John Keegan

  Quality, Diplomats, Compromise

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• 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

  Years, Islam, West

  "Foreign Correspondent" with Jennifer Byrne, (ABC, Australia), October 10, 2001.

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• 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

  Men, Killing Others, Long

  "John Keegan: A History of Warfare". "Booknotes" with Brian Lamb, booknotes.org. May 8, 1994.

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• 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

  Thinking, Political, Bosnia

  "A History of Warfare". Book by John Keegan, November, 1991.

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• Good men who exercise power are really the most fascinating of all people.

  John Keegan

  Exercise, Men, People

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• 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

  Thinking, Scary, Black

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• Of whatever class or nation, however, all successful participants in the repetitive and unrelenting stress of aerial fighting came eventually to display its characteristic physiognomy: skeletal hands, sharpened noses, tight-drawn cheek bones, the bared teeth of a rictus smile and the fixed, narrowed gaze of men in a state of controlled fear.

  John Keegan

  Stress, Fighting, Successful

  John Keegan (1999). “The First World War”, Knopf

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• We saw the children and the women with their babies and then I heard the poouff — the flame had broken through the thatched roof and there was a yellow- brown smoke column going up into the air. It didn't hit me all that much then, but when I think of it now — I slaughtered those people. I murdered them.

  John Keegan

  Baby, Children, Thinking

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• We forget today that Britain still depends for its livelihood and, indeed, its day-to-day survival, on the sea. But the Royal Navy is now pitifully small and has been reduced in size by the current Government, seeking economies to finance its social programmes. Fine while there is no threat to our security. But what use would schools and hospitals be if we could not protect our imports?

  John Keegan

  School, Government, Sea

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• 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

  Thinking, Hiking, Mountain

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• 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

  Regret, Mean, People

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• If Wellington epitomizes the English gentleman, Eisenhower epitomizes the natural American gentleman.

  John Keegan

  Hair, Gentleman, Natural

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