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Authors:

John Keegan quotes

English Historian May 15, 1934 – August 2, 2012

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Quotes

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
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
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
For our purpose, however, what the soldiers did or did not read is irrelevant. For, if soldiers did not learn to fight their battles from reading books, neither is it likely that military historians learned to write their books from watching battles. Battles are extremely confusing; and confronted with the need to make sense of something he does not understand, even the cleverest, indeed preeminently the cleverest man, realizing his need for a language and metaphor he does not possess, will... John Keegan
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
John Keegan quote: "The great men of power who seek to change the nations they..."
The great men of power who seek to change the nations they belong to usually are pretty terrible people. John Keegan
John Keegan quote: "If Wellington epitomizes the English gentleman, Eisenhower..."
If Wellington epitomizes the English gentleman, Eisenhower epitomizes the natural American gentleman. John Keegan
John Keegan quote: "Good men who exercise power are really the most fascinating of..."
Good men who exercise power are really the most fascinating of all people. 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
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
John Keegan quote: "We may have to have a geo-political regrouping or major..."
We may have to have a geo-political regrouping or major geo-political changes. John Keegan
One of Picton's officers fell asleep the instant the halt was sounded and did not think of food until later in the night, when he woke to eat some chops cooked in the breastplate of a dead cuirassier (meat fried in a breastplate was very much la mode in the Waterloo campaign, rather as rats spitted on a bayonet were to be in 1871 or champagne exhumed from chateau gardens in 1914). John Keegan
Visually Agincourt is a pre-Raphaelite, perhaps better a Medici Gallery print battle - a composition of strong verticals and horizontals and a conflict of rich dark reds and Lincoln greens against fishscale greys and arctic blues. 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

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