64 Quotes by John Keegan

[W]e are hardened to what we know, and we rationalise and even justify cruelties practised by us and our like while retaining the capacity to be outraged, even disgusted by practices equally cruel which, under the hands of strangers, take a different form.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

I think to be shot in a mountain valley somewhere or other is altogether less glorious than crashing an airliner into a skyscraper.