Explore the most impactful and insightful quotes and sayings by Margaret Thatcher, and enrich your perspective with the wisdom. Share these inspiring Margaret Thatcher quotes pictures with your friends on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blogs, completely free. Here are the top 425 Margaret Thatcher quotes for you to read and share.
I do not know anyone who has gotten to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but it will get you pretty near. -- Margaret Thatcher
Their pitiless ideology only survives because it is maintained by force. But the day comes when the anger and frustration of the people is so great that force cannot contain it. Then the edifice cracks: the mortar crumbles. -- Margaret Thatcher
History has taught us that freedom cannot long survive unless it is based on moral foundations. You can get the economics right, but in addition liberty must be cultivated as a moral quality. -- Margaret Thatcher
If you want to cut your own throat, don't come to me for a bandage. -- Margaret Thatcher
I am an ally of the United States. We believe the same things, we believe passionately in the same battle of ideas, we will defend them to the hilt. Never try to separate me from them. -- Margaret Thatcher
It is one of the great weaknesses of reasonable men and women that they imagine that projects which fly in the face of commonsense are not serious or being seriously undertaken. -- Margaret Thatcher
Let's make it clear: the Conservative Party has no plans for new NHS charges. -- Margaret Thatcher
Being prime minister is a lonely job ... you cannot lead from the crowd. -- Margaret Thatcher
It is absolutely right that President Reagan considers SDI and thank goodness people considered nuclear research before the last war. -- Margaret Thatcher
Had I faltered we would have neither the success nor the international reputation we have. Yet when a woman is strong she is strident. If a man is strong, he's a good guy. -- Margaret Thatcher
We speak of peace, yes, but whose peace? Poland's? Bulgaria's? The peace of the grave? -- Margaret Thatcher
Is there conscience in the Kremlin? Do they ever ask themselves what is the purpose of life? What is it all for? ... No. Their creed is barren of conscience, immune to the promptings of good and evil. -- Margaret Thatcher
I have a habit of comparing the phraseology of communiques ... noting a certain similarity of words, a certain similarity of optimism ... and a certain similarity in the lack of practical results during the ensuring years. -- Margaret Thatcher
If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing. -- Margaret Thatcher
Women have plenty of roles in which they can serve with distinction: some of us even run countries. But generally we are better at wielding the handbag than the bayonet. -- Margaret Thatcher
I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph. -- Margaret Thatcher
We went back on a very similar manifesto to things I believe in. The difference is that after eighteen months to two years he did the biggest U-turn on policy of all time and started to go the wrong way. In the end, that cost us the next election. -- Margaret Thatcher
If you are guided by opinion polls, you are not practicing leadership
you are practicing followership. -- Margaret Thatcher
I owe nothing to Women's Lib. -- Margaret Thatcher
The choice facing the nation is between two totally different ways of life. And what a prize we have to fight for: no less than the chance to banish from our land the dark, divisive clouds of Marxist socialism and bring together men and women from all walks of life who share a belief in freedom. -- Margaret Thatcher
Christmas is a day of meaning and traditions, a special day spent in the warm circle of family and friends. -- Margaret Thatcher
The virtues prized in free countries are honesty, self-discipline, a sense of responsibility to one's family, a sense of loyalty to one's employer and staff, and a pride in the quality of one's work. And these virtues only flourish in a climate of freedom. -- Margaret Thatcher
How thin is the crust of order over the fires of human appetite and the lust for naked power. -- Margaret Thatcher
(Not) even the US can impose peace: it has to be genuinely accepted by both parties involved. -- Margaret Thatcher
No great goal was ever easily achieved. -- Margaret Thatcher
I've learned one thing in politics. You don't take a decision until you have to. -- Margaret Thatcher
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money. -- Margaret Thatcher
Yet the basic fact remains: every regulation represents a restriction of liberty, every regulation has a cost. That is why, like marriage (in the Prayer Book's words), regulation should not "be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly" -- Margaret Thatcher
If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you. -- Margaret Thatcher
If you have a sense of purpose and a sense of direction, I believe people will follow you. Democracy isn't just about deducing what the people want. Democracy is leading the people as well. -- Margaret Thatcher
Our judgement is that the presence of the Royal Marines garrison is sufficient deterrent against any possible aggression. -- Margaret Thatcher
I still want to play in it, maybe when I absolutely think I have no chance of playing in it my view might change but I doubt it because it just doesn't interest me. -- Margaret Thatcher
Business success isn't just a selfish aim. Profits spread beyond those who make them and bring jobs and prosperity. -- Margaret Thatcher
In the same period that the Americans have lived under one constitution our French friends notched up five. A Punch cartoon has a 19th century Englishman asking a librarian for a copy of the French constitution, only to be told: 'I am sorry Sir, we do not stock periodicals.' -- Margaret Thatcher
Israel must never be expected to jeopardize her security: if she was ever foolish enough to do so, and then suffered for it, the backlash against both honest brokers and Palestinians would be immense - 'land for peace' must also bring peace. -- Margaret Thatcher
For the Christian there can be no social or political panaceas, no easy escapes from personal responsibility achieved by collectivising guilt or virtue. The true ends of temporal life lie beyond it, and, though the tyrannical State may diminish virtue, the benevolent State cannot procure it. -- Margaret Thatcher
Life's greatest reward is life itself -- Margaret Thatcher
I love argument, I love debate. I don't expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that's not their job. -- Margaret Thatcher
One only gets to the top rung on the ladder by steadily climbing up one at a time, and suddenly, all sorts of powers, all sorts of abilities which you thought never belonged to you - suddenly become within your own possibility and you think, 'Well, I'll have a go, too.' -- Margaret Thatcher
Everything a politician promises at election time has to be paid for either by higher taxation or by borrowing. -- Margaret Thatcher
I have made it quite clear that a unified Ireland was one solution that is out. A second solution was a confederation of two states. That is out. A third solution was joint authority. That is out-that is a derogation of sovereignty. -- Margaret Thatcher
(A unified) 'Europe' is the result of plans. It is, in fact, a classic utopian project, a monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure: only the scale of the final damage done is in doubt. -- Margaret Thatcher
This business of the working class is on its way out I think. After all, aren't I working class? I work jolly hard, I can tell you. -- Margaret Thatcher
I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near. -- Margaret Thatcher
It is important not to allow ever wider coalition-building to become an end in itself. As we saw in the Gulf War of 1990, international pressures, particularly those exerted from within an alliance, can result in the failure to follow actions through and so leave future problems unresolved. -- Margaret Thatcher
Do you know, one of the greatest problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas? Now, thoughts and ideas, that interests me. -- Margaret Thatcher
Unless we change our ways and our direction, our greatness as a nation will soon be a footnote in the history books, a distant memory of an offshore island, lost in the mist of time like Camelot, remembered kindly for its noble past. -- Margaret Thatcher
Any leader has to have a certain amount of steel in them, so I am not that put out being called the Iron Lady. -- Margaret Thatcher
I will not stagger from expedient to expedient. -- Margaret Thatcher
It is always important in matters of high politics to know what you do not know. Those who think that they know, but are mistaken, and act upon their mistakes, are the most dangerous people to have in charge. -- Margaret Thatcher
I don't think any woman in power really has a happy life unless she's got a large number of women friends ... because you sometimes must go and sit down and let down your hair with someone you can trust totally. -- Margaret Thatcher
Wars are not caused by the buildup of weapons. They are caused when an aggressor believes he can achieve his objectives at an acceptable price. -- Margaret Thatcher
Making change tolerable is one of the duties of Government. -- Margaret Thatcher
Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose. -- Margaret Thatcher
It took us a long time to get rid of the effects of the French Revolution 200 years ago. We don't want another one. -- Margaret Thatcher
Let our children grow tall and some taller than others if they have it in them to do so. -- Margaret Thatcher
If we are safe today, it is because America has stood with us. If we are to remain safe tomorrow, it will be because America remains powerful and self-confident. When, therefore, the Americans face difficulties, we need to say to them more clearly: We are with you. -- Margaret Thatcher
To wear your heart on your sleeve isn't a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best. -- Margaret Thatcher
Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy. -- Margaret Thatcher
No generation has a free hold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy-with a full repairing lease. -- Margaret Thatcher
I hope we shall see more ande more women combining marriage and a career. Prejudice against this dual role is not confined to men. I regret to say, it comes from our own sex. -- Margaret Thatcher
While the Soviet Union has imposed its rule on its neighbours and drawn an iron curtain between east and west, we in Great Britain have given freedom and independence to more than forty-eight countries whose populations now number more than a thousand million - a quarter of the world's total. -- Margaret Thatcher
Reagan did not suffer from the dismal plague of doubts which has assailed so many politicians in our times and which has rendered them incapable of clear decisions. -- Margaret Thatcher
We have made too much of one or two people, and we think that they can win or lose elections for us. Don't be depressed if one particular person transgresses. It doesn't lose an election unless the Party loses faith in itself. -- Margaret Thatcher
Obsolete weapons do not deter. -- Margaret Thatcher
Socialism lays an bad egg by killing the capitalism that lays the golden eggs -- Margaret Thatcher
When hecklers stand up, I get a mental jump for joy. It gives me something to get my teeth into - and the audiences love it. -- Margaret Thatcher
We should not expect the state to appear in the guise of an extravagant good fairy at every christening, a loquacious companion at every stage of life's journey, and the unknown mourner at every funeral. -- Margaret Thatcher
Inflation is the parent of unemployment and the unseen robber of those who have saved. -- Margaret Thatcher
I can cope with nine of them, so they ought to be able to stand one of me. They could end the tiresomeness and stubbornness by giving me what I want. -- Margaret Thatcher
In the Conservative Party we have no truck with outmoded Marxist doctrine about class warfare. For us it is not who you are, who your family is or where you come from that matters, but what you are and what you can do for your country that counts. -- Margaret Thatcher
The desire to win is born in most of us. The will to win is a matter of training. The manner of winning is a matter of honour. -- Margaret Thatcher
You will only succeed if you know that what you are doing is right and you know how to bring out the best in people. -- Margaret Thatcher
The legal system we have and the rule of law are far more responsible for our traditional liberties than any system of one man one vote. Any country or Government which wants to proceed towards tyranny starts to undermine legal rights and undermine the law. -- Margaret Thatcher
Terrorism thrives on a free society. The terrorist uses the feelings in a free society to sap the will of civilization to resist. If the terrorist succeeds, he has won and the whole of free society has lost. -- Margaret Thatcher
Rogue states never turn out to be quite the pariahs they are deemed. They are only able to cause, or at least threaten to cause, mayhem because they enjoy the covert support - usually by means of technology transfers - of one or more major powers within the charmed circle of global 'good guys'. -- Margaret Thatcher
Left-wing zealots have often been prepared to ride roughshod over due process and basic considerations of fairness when they think they can get away with it. For them the ends always seems to justify the means. That is precisely how their predecessors came to create the gulag. -- Margaret Thatcher
We must not fall into the trap of projecting our own morality onto the Soviet leaders. They do not share our aspirations, they are not constrained by our ethics, they always consider themselves exempt from the rules that bind other states. -- Margaret Thatcher
But because we accept the sanctity of life, the responsibility that comes with freedom and the supreme sacrifice of Christ expressed so well in the hymn: 'When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died. My richest gain I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride.' -- Margaret Thatcher
I started out in life with two great advantages: No money and good parents. -- Margaret Thatcher
John Gummer just did not have the political clout or credibility to rally the troops. I had appointed him as a sort of nightwatchman, but he seemed to have to sleep on the job. -- Margaret Thatcher
Bribing regimes to comply with requirements which they should have acknowledged in the first place is not a process that appeals to me. -- Margaret Thatcher
We should see to it that our people are steeped in a real knowledge and understanding of our national culture. -- Margaret Thatcher
Leadership is about having principles. A leader must have a vision and principles that will endure for all time and must always be true to these principles, applying them to changing circumstances -- Margaret Thatcher
Of course it's the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story. -- Margaret Thatcher
The first step in calculating which way to go is to find out where you are. -- Margaret Thatcher
You turn if you want to. The Lady's not for turning. -- Margaret Thatcher
The Kosovo campaign was a just and necessary war. And I believe that Blair - of whom I have many criticisms - in this case showed real determination in conducting it. -- Margaret Thatcher
Just rejoice at the news and congratulate our armed forces and the Marines. Rejoice! -- Margaret Thatcher
I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. -- Margaret Thatcher
Ronald Reagan knew his own mind. He had firm principles - and, I believe, right ones. He expounded them clearly, he acted upon them decisively. -- Margaret Thatcher
Economics are the method; the object is to change the soul. -- Margaret Thatcher
Good Conservatives always pay their bills. And on time. Not like the Socialists who run up other people's bills. -- Margaret Thatcher
Marxists get up early to further their cause. We must get up even earlier to defend our freedom. -- Margaret Thatcher
Young people ought not to be idle, it is very bad for them. -- Margaret Thatcher
Conservatives have excellent credentials to speak about human rights. By our efforts, and with precious little help from self-styled liberals, we were largely responsible for securing liberty for a substantial share of the world's population and defending it for most of the rest. -- Margaret Thatcher
The patronage state is an arrogant state. It assumes it can spend your money better than you do. Yet it expects you to work for it in the first place. -- Margaret Thatcher
I came to office with one deliberate intent: to change Britain from a dependent to a self-reliant society
from a give-it-to-me, to a do-it-yourself nation. A get-up-and-go, instead of a sit-back-and-wait-for-it Britain. -- Margaret Thatcher
In politics, If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman. -- Margaret Thatcher
Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend. -- Margaret Thatcher
I will not change just to court popularity. -- Margaret Thatcher
I love his music because he was my generation. But then again, Elvis is everyone's generation, and he always will be. -- Margaret Thatcher
If there is one instance in which a foreign policy I pursued met with unambiguous failure, it was my policy on German reunification. -- Margaret Thatcher
We should not underestimate the enormity of the task which lies ahead. But little can be achieved without sound money. It is the bedrock of sound government. -- Margaret Thatcher
Freedom under the law must never be taken for granted. -- Margaret Thatcher
You can present people with ideas they may come to believe in, and as a result of them they will act, if they have the opportunities. Presenting people with opportunities is part of what politics is about. -- Margaret Thatcher
Let us, then, draw together in the name, not of jingoism, but of justice -- Margaret Thatcher
We Conservatives hate unemployment. -- Margaret Thatcher
Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them. -- Margaret Thatcher
The battle for women's rights has been largely won. -- Margaret Thatcher
It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake. -- Margaret Thatcher
I am not a compromiser on fundamentals. -- Margaret Thatcher
All the general propositions favouring freedom I had .. imbibed at my father's knee or acquired by candle-end reading of Burke and Hayek ... -- Margaret Thatcher
What happened in Russia in 1917 wasn't a revolution - it was a coup d'etat. -- Margaret Thatcher
Defeat? I do not recognize the meaning of the word. -- Margaret Thatcher
We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels. -- Margaret Thatcher
Platitudes? Yes, there are platitudes. Platitudes are there because they are true. -- Margaret Thatcher
Don't Cry For Me, Argentina -- Margaret Thatcher
If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman. -- Margaret Thatcher
To accuse me of being too inflexible is poppycock. -- Margaret Thatcher
We need to create a mood where it is everywhere thought morally right for as many people as possible to acquire capital. -- Margaret Thatcher
To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches. -- Margaret Thatcher
Europe will never be like America. Europe is a product of history. America is a product of philosophy. -- Margaret Thatcher
It is no exaggeration to describe plain English as a fundamental tool of government. -- Margaret Thatcher
The facts of life are conservative. -- Margaret Thatcher
During my lifetime most of the problems the world has faced have come, in one fashion or other, from mainland Europe, and the solutions from outside it. -- Margaret Thatcher
Don't follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you. -- Margaret Thatcher
The government has no money of its own. It's all your money. -- Margaret Thatcher
In my lifetime all our problems have come from mainland Europe and all the solutions have come from the English-speaking nations across the world. -- Margaret Thatcher
A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure, -- Margaret Thatcher
When I'm out of politics I'm going to run a business, it'll be called rent-a-spine -- Margaret Thatcher
If a Tory does not believe that private property is one of the main bulwarks of individual freedom, then he had better become a socialist and have done with it. -- Margaret Thatcher
No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well. -- Margaret Thatcher
I am always on the job. -- Margaret Thatcher
Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides. -- Margaret Thatcher
I do wish I had brought my cheque book. I don't believe in credit cards. -- Margaret Thatcher
If it's me against 48, I feel sorry for the 48. -- Margaret Thatcher
There are some remarkable parallels between basketball and politics. Michael Jordan has already mastered the skill most needed for political success: how to stay aloft without visible means of support. -- Margaret Thatcher
If ... many influential people have failed to understand, or have just forgotten, what we were up against in the Cold War and how we overcame it, they are not going to be capable of securing, let alone enlarging, the gains that liberty has made. -- Margaret Thatcher
I am not immortal, but I've got a lot left in me yet. -- Margaret Thatcher
I fight on. I fight to win. -- Margaret Thatcher
I believe in the acceptance of personal responsibility, freedom of choice, and the British Empire, which took freedom and the rule of law to countries which would never have known it otherwise. -- Margaret Thatcher
Freedom is not synonymous with an easy life ... There are many difficult things about freedom: It does not give you safety, it creates moral dilemmas for you; it requires self-discipline; it imposes great responsibilities; but such is the nature of Man and in such consists his glory and salvation. -- Margaret Thatcher
The mission of this government is much more than the promotion of economic progress. It is to renew the spirit and solidarity of the nation. -- Margaret Thatcher
Europe is ... a monument to the vanity of individuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure. -- Margaret Thatcher
As prime minister, I worked closely with Ronald Reagan for eight of the most important years of all our lives. We talked regularly both before and after his presidency. And I have had time and cause to reflect on what made him a great president. -- Margaret Thatcher
Citizenship should be based on those who have a close and real relationship with this country and its inhabitants. -- Margaret Thatcher
At one end of the spectrum are the terrorist gangs within our borders, and the terrorist states which finance and arm them. At the other are the hard left operating inside our system, conspiring to use union power and the apparatus of local government to break, defy and subvert the law. -- Margaret Thatcher
I exercise my right as a free citizen to spend my own money in my own way, so that I can go on the day, the time, to the doctor I choose and get out fast. -- Margaret Thatcher
I do not understand the unilateralists. If they hated nuclear weapons as much as I do they would want them down in the world as a whole. I am the true disarmer, I keep peace and freedom and justice with it. -- Margaret Thatcher
A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us. -- Margaret Thatcher
I was asked whether I was trying to restore Victorian values. I said straight out I was. And I am. -- Margaret Thatcher
I had the patriotic conviction that, given great leadership of the sort I heard from Winston Churchill in the radio broadcasts to which we listened, there was almost nothing that the British people could not do. -- Margaret Thatcher
I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it. -- Margaret Thatcher
The accumulation of wealth is a process which is of itself morally neutral. True, as Christianity teaches, riches bring temptations. But then so does poverty. -- Margaret Thatcher
We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty. -- Margaret Thatcher
We only need to be lucky once. You need to be lucky every time. -- Margaret Thatcher
I want a capital-earning democracy. Every man and woman a capitalist. Housing is the start. If you're a man or woman of property, you've got something. So every man a capitalist, and every man a man of property. -- Margaret Thatcher
Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law. -- Margaret Thatcher
If we open our hearts to God, He has promised to work within us. -- Margaret Thatcher
I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air. -- Margaret Thatcher
The Iraqis had paid a terrible price for Saddam's folly (in the Gulf War). But looking at the devastation they left behind (in Kuwait), my sympathy was limited. -- Margaret Thatcher
To the extent that the West is to blame at all for the ills of the Third World it is to the extent that the West created Marx and his successors, among whom must be numbered many of those who advised the Third World leaders in post-war years. -- Margaret Thatcher
The West as a whole in the early 1990s become obsessed with a 'peace dividend' that would be spent over and over again on any number of soft-hearted and sometimes soft-headed causes. Politicians forget that the only real peace dividend is peace. -- Margaret Thatcher
We do not believe that if you cut back what government does you diminish its authority. On the contrary, a government that did less, and therefore did better, would strengthen its authority. -- Margaret Thatcher
I do believe that political arrangements which are based upon violence, intimidation and theft will eventually break down - and will deserve to do so. -- Margaret Thatcher
We were told our campaign wasn't sufficiently slick. We regard that as a compliment. -- Margaret Thatcher
Isn't a policy of conventional weapons, with the terrible bombs raining down, with the missiles, with the aircraft, with the submarines, with the torpedoes, with the tanks, with chemical weapons - isn't that based on the possibility of threat? -- Margaret Thatcher
Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus. -- Margaret Thatcher
For every idealistic peacemaker willing to renounce his self-defence in favour of a weapons-free world, there is at least one warmaker anxious to exploit the other's good intentions. -- Margaret Thatcher
A man may climb Everest for himself, but at the summit he plants his country's flag. -- Margaret Thatcher
Free enterprise has enabled the creative and the acquisitive urges of man to be given expression in a way which benefits all members of society. Let free enterprise fight back now, not for itself, but for all those who believe in freedom. -- Margaret Thatcher
When you've spent half your political life dealing with humdrum issues like the environment, it's exciting to have a real crisis on your hands. -- Margaret Thatcher
Let us never forget this fundamental truth: The State has no source of money other than the money people themselves earn. -- Margaret Thatcher
I wouldn't be worth my salt if I weren't attracting some controversy and criticism. Everyone in the world who has done something in life has attracted criticism. -- Margaret Thatcher
I believe our way of life is infinitely superior for every human being than any which the Communist creed can offer. -- Margaret Thatcher
Let me give you my vision: A man's right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as servant and not as master. These are the British inheritance. They are the essence of a free country, and on that freedom all of our other freedoms depend. -- Margaret Thatcher
Never flinch. Make up your own mind and do it. -- Margaret Thatcher
You and I come by road or rail, but economists travel on infrastructure. -- Margaret Thatcher
Naturally, it is with some temerity that the pupil speaks before the master, because you know more about the Common Market than anybody. -- Margaret Thatcher
We had to do what we had to do - Britain is great again. -- Margaret Thatcher
If someone is confronting our essential liberties, if someone is inflicting injuries and harm, by God I'll confront them! -- Margaret Thatcher
The price of freedom is still, and always will be, eternal vigilance. -- Margaret Thatcher
We intend freedom and justice to conquer. Yes, we do have a creed and we wish others to share it. But it is not part of our policy to impose our beliefs by force or threat of force. -- Margaret Thatcher
To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects. -- Margaret Thatcher
The feminists hate me, don't they? And I don't blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison. -- Margaret Thatcher
There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty. -- Margaret Thatcher
If you just set out to be liked, you will be prepared to compromise on anything at anytime, and would achieve nothing. -- Margaret Thatcher
If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn't swim. -- Margaret Thatcher
What is right for the family is right for Britain. -- Margaret Thatcher
Ideally, when Christians meet, as Christians do, to take counsel together, their purpose is not ( or should not be) to ascertain what is the mind of the majority but what is the mind of the Holy Spirit - something which may be quite different. -- Margaret Thatcher
Every family should have the right to spend their money, after tax, as they wish, and not as the government dictates. Let us extend choice, extend the will to choose and the chance to choose. -- Margaret Thatcher
I want to get totally rid of class distinction. As someone put it one of the papers this morning: Marks and Spencer have triumphed over Karl Marx and Engels. -- Margaret Thatcher
I have never knowingly made a non-controversial speech in my life. -- Margaret Thatcher
In a system of free trade and free markets poor countries - and poor people - are not poor because others are rich. Indeed, if others became less rich the poor would in all probability become still poorer. -- Margaret Thatcher
We want a society in which we are free to make choices, to make mistakes, to be generous and compassionate. That is what we mean by a moral society - not a society in which the State is responsible for everything, and no one is responsible for the State. -- Margaret Thatcher
When people are free to choose, they choose freedom -- Margaret Thatcher
The National Health Service is safe with us. The principle of adequate healthcare should be provided for all regardless of ability to pay must be the function of any arrangements for financing the NHS. We stand by that. -- Margaret Thatcher
We must not fall into the mistake of thinking that it is America that trades with Taiwan or Europe that trades with Asia. The truth is that it is American companies that trade with Taiwanese companies. -- Margaret Thatcher
I'm not a good butcher but I've had to learn to carve the joint. People expect a new look. -- Margaret Thatcher
Freedom will destroy itself if it is not exercised within some sort of moral framework, some body of shared beliefs, some spiritual heritage transmitted through the Church, the family, and the school. -- Margaret Thatcher
I don't think there will be a woman prime minister in my lifetime. -- Margaret Thatcher
I was turned out because I said to Europe no, no, no. That no, no , no has now turned into yes, yes. Two yes's not three because he got the Social Chapter out and he's reserved his position on the single currency. -- Margaret Thatcher
Many of our troubles are due to the fact that our people turn to politicians for everything. -- Margaret Thatcher
But the whole history of America is quite different from Europe. People went there to get away from the intolerance and constraints of life in Europe. They sought liberty and opportunity; and their strong sense of purpose has over two centuries, helped create a new unity and pride in being American. -- Margaret Thatcher
Consensus is the absence of leadership. -- Margaret Thatcher
I believe that the royal family are a focus of patriotism, of loyalty, of affection and of esteem. That is a rare combination, and we should value it highly. -- Margaret Thatcher
But if Saddam had been in a position credibly to threaten America or any of its allies - or the coalition's forces - with attack by missiles with nuclear warheads, would we have gone to the Gulf at all? -- Margaret Thatcher
How very popular to say, 'spend more on this, expend more on that.' And of course, we all have our favorite causes; I know I do. But someone has to add up the figures. Every business has to do it, every housewife has to do it, [and] every government should do it. -- Margaret Thatcher
Socialism is in no way a curate's egg -- Margaret Thatcher
Every Conservative desires peace. The threat to peace comes from Communism which has powerful forces ready to attack anywhere. Communism waits for weakness, it leaves strength alone. Britain must therefore be strong, strong in her arms, strong in her faith, strong in her own way of life. -- Margaret Thatcher
There is no such thing as society. -- Margaret Thatcher
Misgovernment ... will often be reflected in oppressive or aggressive policies towards groups within the state or towards the state's neighbours. -- Margaret Thatcher
The election of a man committed to the cause of freedom and the renewal of America's strength has given encouragement to all those who love liberty. -- Margaret Thatcher
There is a nonsense about intelligent women not being beautiful. -- Margaret Thatcher
Whether at home or abroad, the task of statesman is to work with human nature warts and all, and to draw on instincts and even prejudices that can be turned to good purpose. It is never to try to recreate Mankind in a new image. -- Margaret Thatcher
It will be years - not in my time - before a woman will become Prime Minister -- Margaret Thatcher
I would not wish to be Prime Minister, dear. -- Margaret Thatcher
[When asked how it felt to be a female prime minister:] I don't know: I've never experienced the alternative. -- Margaret Thatcher
People from my sort of background needed grammar schools to compete with children from privileged homes like Shirley Williams and Anthony Wedgwood Benn. -- Margaret Thatcher
I applaud strong government, but not overweening government sustained by cronies, ciphers and a personality cult. -- Margaret Thatcher
Home is where you come to when you've got nothing better to do. -- Margaret Thatcher
When you stop a dictator, there are always risks. But there are greater risks in not stopping a dictator. -- Margaret Thatcher
Remember, George, this is no time to go wobbly. -- Margaret Thatcher
When government does its job properly people are free to do theirs. -- Margaret Thatcher
It is not the business of politicians to please everyone. -- Margaret Thatcher
Most women defend themselves. It is the female of the species-it is the tigress and lioness in you which tends to defend when attacked. -- Margaret Thatcher
You don't win by just being against things, you only win by being for things and making your message perfectly clear. -- Margaret Thatcher
And what a prize we have to fight for: no less than the chance to banish from our land the dark divisive clouds of Marxist socialism. -- Margaret Thatcher
(On The International Criminal Court) "For the victors of the Cold War to submit to an unelected, unaccountable, and almost certainly hostile body such as that envisaged would be the ultimate irony." -- Margaret Thatcher
There are too many people who imagine that there is something sophisticated about always believing the best of those who hate your country, and the worst of those who defend it. -- Margaret Thatcher
[On being asked how many Mrs. Thatchers there were:] Oh, three at least. There is the intellectual one, the intuitive one and the one at home. -- Margaret Thatcher
In my view dictators do not surrender. They have to be well and truly defeated. -- Margaret Thatcher
The battle for women's rights has largely been won. The days when they were demanded and discussed in strident tones should be gone forever. I hate those strident tones we hear from some Women's Libbers. -- Margaret Thatcher
A democratic Europe of nation states could be a force for liberty, enterprise and open trade. But, if creating a United States of Europe overrides these goals, the new Europe will be one of subsidy and protection -- Margaret Thatcher
It's okay, Chancellor, you can touch them. Sometimes I just strip down to a tank top and stare at these guns in front of a mirror all day long. -- Margaret Thatcher
Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas. -- Margaret Thatcher
The Nuremburg trials were attacked at the time as 'victor's justice'. And this is precisely what they were - and were intended to be. -- Margaret Thatcher
Give me six men and true, and I will get policies through. -- Margaret Thatcher
The habit of ubiquitous interventionism, combining pinprick strikes by precision weapons with pious invocations of high principle, would lead us into endless difficulties. Interventions must be limited in number and overwhelming in their impact. -- Margaret Thatcher
[On George H.W. Bush:] By 1990 I had learned that I had to defer to him in conversation and not to stint the praise. If that was what was necessary to secure Britain's interests and influence, I had no hesitation in eating a little humble pie. -- Margaret Thatcher
I am an undiluted admirer of American values and the American dream and I believe they will continue to inspire not just the people of the United States but millions across the face of the globe. -- Margaret Thatcher
New technology is the true friend of full employment; the indispensable ally of progress; and the surest guarantee of prosperity. -- Margaret Thatcher
As a motive for terror, religion has more often than not required a good deal of lubrication by lucre. -- Margaret Thatcher
Never believe that technology alone will allow America to prevail as a superpower. -- Margaret Thatcher
Why do you climb philosophical hills? Because they are worth climbing ... There are no hills to go down unless you start from the top. -- Margaret Thatcher
That is what capitalism is: a system that brings wealth to the many, not just the few. -- Margaret Thatcher
Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country. -- Margaret Thatcher
Constitutions have to be written on hearts, not just paper. -- Margaret Thatcher
Those who imagine that a politician would make a better figurehead than a hereditary monarch might perhaps make the acquaintance of more politicians. -- Margaret Thatcher
Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth. -- Margaret Thatcher
To those waiting with bated breath for that favorite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only this to say, 'You turn if you want; the lady's not for turning. -- Margaret Thatcher
Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean - power over people, power to the State. -- Margaret Thatcher
We need a free economy not only for the renewed material prosperity it will bring, but because it is indispensable to individual freedom, human dignity and to a more just, more honest society. -- Margaret Thatcher
If you set out to be liked, you will accomplish nothing. -- Margaret Thatcher
The spirit of envy can destroy; it can never build. -- Margaret Thatcher
We do not achieve happiness or salvation in isolation from each other but as members of society -- Margaret Thatcher
You can't buck the market. -- Margaret Thatcher
President Numeiri of Sudan is said to have remarked of Gadaffi that he was 'a man with a split personality - both of them evil'. -- Margaret Thatcher
There are always dangers about. Therefore you must always keep your defences strong. -- Margaret Thatcher
I don't know what I would do without Whitelaw. Everyone should have a Willy. -- Margaret Thatcher
Rooster, maybe well crows, but the eggs still bears the chicken. -- Margaret Thatcher
The European single currency is bound to fail, economically, politically and indeed socially, though the timing, occasion and full consequences are all necessarily still unclear. -- Margaret Thatcher
I'm either the witch or Lady Macbeth of English politics, but someone gotta wear the pants in England when others wearing kilts -- Margaret Thatcher
I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end. -- Margaret Thatcher
Advisers advise, and ministers decide. -- Margaret Thatcher
My policies are based not on some economics theory, but on things I and millions like me were brought up with: an honest day's work for an honest day's pay; live within your means; put by a nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police. -- Margaret Thatcher
It pays to know the enemy - not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend. -- Margaret Thatcher
I've got a woman's ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it. -- Margaret Thatcher
Communist regimes were not some unfortunate aberration, some historical deviation from a socialist ideal. They were the ultimate expression, unconstrained by democratic and electoral pressures, of what socialism is all about ... In short, the state [is] everything and the individual nothing. -- Margaret Thatcher
The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. -- Margaret Thatcher
The messages on our banners in 1979 - freedom, opportunity, family, enterprise, ownership - are now inscribed on the banners in Leipzig, Warsaw, Budapest and even Moscow. -- Margaret Thatcher
We will stand on principle or we will not stand at all. -- Margaret Thatcher
We have become a grandmother. -- Margaret Thatcher
I have the money and they won't get their hands on it. -- Margaret Thatcher
I believe we should continue to have a partnership of national states each retaining the right to protect its vital interests, but developing more effectively than at present the habit of working together. -- Margaret Thatcher
Personal virtue is no substitute for political hard-headedness. -- Margaret Thatcher
We are very fortunate to have someone else's weapons stationed on our soil, to fight those targeted on us. -- Margaret Thatcher
One of the things being in politics has taught me is that men are not a reasoned or reasonable sex. -- Margaret Thatcher
Socialists don't like ordinary people choosing, for they might not choose socialism. -- Margaret Thatcher
Never in the history of human credit has so much been owed. -- Margaret Thatcher
Under a Labour government, there's virtually nowhere you can put your savings where they would be safe from the state ... If you put money in a sock they'd probably nationalize socks. -- Margaret Thatcher
I just owe almost everything to my father and it's passionately interesting for me that the things that I learned in a small town, in a very modest home, are just the things that I believe have won the election. -- Margaret Thatcher
When you take into public ownership a profitable industry the profits soon disappear. The goose that laid the golden eggs goes broody. State geese are not great layers. -- Margaret Thatcher
Forget that I'm a woman. Forget the accusations that I am a Right Winger demanding privilege - I had precious little privilege in my early years. -- Margaret Thatcher
I'm also very much aware that it is you who brought democracy to Chile, you set up a constitution suitable for democracy, you put it into effect, elections were held, and then, in accordance with the result, you stepped down. -- Margaret Thatcher
When you hold back the successful, you penalize those who need help. -- Margaret Thatcher
Fear is not the basis for foreign policy. -- Margaret Thatcher
The fact that seasoned politicians can say such ridiculous things - and get away with it - illustrates the degree to which the new dogma ... has swept through the left-of-centre governing classes. -- Margaret Thatcher
Gentlemen, if we don't cut spending we will be bankrupt. Yes, the medicine is harsh, but the patient requires it in order to live. Should we withhold the medicine? No. We are not wrong. We did not seek election and win in order to manage the decline of a great nation. -- Margaret Thatcher
Putting the World to Rights -- Margaret Thatcher
I can't bear Britain in decline. I just can't. -- Margaret Thatcher
I don't mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say. -- Margaret Thatcher
Whether it is in the United States or in mainland Europe, written constitutions have one great weakness. That is that they contain the potential to have judges take decisions which should properly be made by democratically elected politicians. -- Margaret Thatcher
Personal abuse is no substitute for policy. It signals panic. -- Margaret Thatcher
It is your tax which pays for public spending. The government have no money of their own. There is only taxpayers' money. -- Margaret Thatcher
I think perhaps we manage our revolutions much more quietly in this country. -- Margaret Thatcher
We introduced the Community Charge. I still call it that. I like the Poles - I never had any intention of taxing them. -- Margaret Thatcher
We are not prepared to consider special category status for certain groups of people serving sentences for crime. Crime is crime is crime, it is not political -- Margaret Thatcher
America, my friends, is the only country in the world actually founded on liberty - the only one. People went to America to be free. -- Margaret Thatcher
The Third World is very much like the First World - just poorer: what works for the West will work for the rest as well. -- Margaret Thatcher
Being powerful is a lot like being a woman: If you have to tell someone that you are, invariably, you are not. -- Margaret Thatcher
The lesson is clear. Inflation devalues us all. -- Margaret Thatcher
Hope is no basis for a defense policy. -- Margaret Thatcher
I'm back ... and you knew I was coming. On my way here I passed a cinema with the sign 'The Mummy Returns'. -- Margaret Thatcher
There are still people in my party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors ... I mean it. -- Margaret Thatcher
Consensus is the negation of leadership. -- Margaret Thatcher
There are dangers in consensus: it could be an attempt to satisfy people holding no particular views about anything ... No great party can survive except on the basis of firm beliefs about what it wants to do. -- Margaret Thatcher
I am not a consensus politician. Im a conviction politician. -- Margaret Thatcher
This lady is not for turning. -- Margaret Thatcher
The woman's mission is not to enhance the masculine spirit, but to express the feminine; hers is not to preserve a man-made world, but to create a human world by the infusion of the feminine element into all of its activities. -- Margaret Thatcher
No woman in my time will be prime minister or chancellor or foreign secretary - not the top jobs. Anyway, I wouldn't want to be prime minister; you have to give yourself 100 percent. -- Margaret Thatcher
Successful entrepreneurship is ultimately a matter of flair. But there is also a fund of practical knowledge to be acquired and, of course, the right legal and financial framework has to be provided for productive enterprise to develop. -- Margaret Thatcher
People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture. -- Margaret Thatcher
One hopes to achieve the zero option, but in the absence of that we must achieve balanced numbers. -- Margaret Thatcher
When I look at him [Edward Heath] and he looks at me, I don't feel that it is a man looking at a woman. More like a woman being looked at by another woman. -- Margaret Thatcher
I couldn't live without work. That's what makes me so sympathetic towards those people who are unemployed. I don't know how they live without working. -- Margaret Thatcher
All attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail. It must be business as usual. -- Margaret Thatcher
Political success is a good deal pleasanter than political failure, but it too brings its problems. -- Margaret Thatcher
Working hard may not make you rich, but it should make you successful. -- Margaret Thatcher
I do not believe it is in the character of the British people to begrudge the lion's share to those who have genuinely played the lion's part. They are ready to recognise that those who create the wealth - and I mean not only material but intellectual wealth - enrich the whole nation. -- Margaret Thatcher
There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families. -- Margaret Thatcher
I went to Oxford University - but I've never let that hold me back. -- Margaret Thatcher
It's no time to be wobbly, Geo. -- Margaret Thatcher
What Britain needs is an iron lady. -- Margaret Thatcher
You can't lead from the crowd. -- Margaret Thatcher
The Prime Minister is stealing our clothes but he is going to look pretty ridiculous walking around in mine. -- Margaret Thatcher
I can't help to spit nails when just thinking about Trade Unions -- Margaret Thatcher
It is in a country's interests to keep faith with its allies. States in this sense are like people. If you have a reputation for exacting favors and not returning them, the favours dry up. -- Margaret Thatcher
Socialists are happy until they run out of other people's money. -- Margaret Thatcher
[On Ronald Reagan:] Poor dear, there's nothing between his ears. -- Margaret Thatcher
There's no such thing as society. -- Margaret Thatcher
It's a funny old world. -- Margaret Thatcher
It used to be about trying to do something. Now it's about trying to be someone. -- Margaret Thatcher
Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's a day you've had everything to do and you've done it. -- Margaret Thatcher
Well, there's a lot to react against![in response to the accusation that she was a reactionary] -- Margaret Thatcher
There is much to be said for trying to improve some disadvantaged people's lot. There is nothing to be said for trying to create heaven on earth. -- Margaret Thatcher
In those days one advantage of being a woman was that there was a basic courtesy towards us on which we could draw - something which today's feminists have largely dissipated. -- Margaret Thatcher
Gentlemen, I have spent the night thinking about this Peruvian (peace) initiative and I have to tell you that if it is your decision to accept then you will have to find another Prime Minister. -- Margaret Thatcher
I calculate that I was responsible for proposing the elevation to the Lords of some 214 of its present numbers. -- Margaret Thatcher
When a big man has a big idea I never like to stand in his way. -- Margaret Thatcher
No theory of government was ever given a fairer test or a more prolonged experiment in a democratic country than democratic socialism received in Britain. Yet it was a miserable failure in every respect ... To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukemia with leeches. -- Margaret Thatcher
There are too few rich and too few profits. -- Margaret Thatcher
The Government wants a peaceful settlement. But we totally reject a peaceful sell-out. -- Margaret Thatcher
The larger the slice taken by government, the smaller the cake available for everyone. -- Margaret Thatcher
Occupied Falklands are the thorn in my balls -- Margaret Thatcher
It must be a conviction Government. As Prime Minister I could not waste time having internal arguments. -- Margaret Thatcher
If a woman like Eva Peron with no ideals can get that far, think how far I can go with the ideals that I have. -- Margaret Thatcher
There might be new technology, but technological progress itself was nothing new - and over the years it had not destroyed jobs, but created them. -- Margaret Thatcher
The United States is contributing massively to the defence of Europe and we should be very grateful. -- Margaret Thatcher
It seems like cloud cuckoo land. If anyone is suggesting that I would go to Parliament and suggest the abolition of the Pound Sterling - no! We have made it quite clear that we will not have a single currency imposed upon us. -- Margaret Thatcher
I think, historically, the term 'Thatcherism' will be seen as a compliment. -- Margaret Thatcher
Our children need strong families raising them with sturdy virtues, not to be smothered in the cold arms of the state. -- Margaret Thatcher
People think that at the top there isn't much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top. -- Margaret Thatcher
The secret of happiness is to live within your income and pay your bills on time. -- Margaret Thatcher
Please don't use the word tough. People might get the impression that I don't care. And I do care, very deeply. Resilient, I think. -- Margaret Thatcher
The Labour Party believes in turning workers against owners; we believe in turning workers into owners. -- Margaret Thatcher
We have been ruled by men who live by illusions ... the illusion that there is some other way of creating wealth than hard work and satisfying your customers. -- Margaret Thatcher
Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't. -- Margaret Thatcher
Ought we not to ask the media to agree among themselves a voluntary code of conduct, under which they would not say or show anything which could assist the terrorists' morale or their cause while the hijack lasted. -- Margaret Thatcher
Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot. -- Margaret Thatcher
I'll stay until I'm tired of it. So long as Britain needs me, I shall never be tired of it. -- Margaret Thatcher
I'm happy as a dog with two dicks -- Margaret Thatcher
No Western nation has to build a wall round itself to keep its people in. -- Margaret Thatcher
Peace is hard work and we must not allow people to forget it. -- Margaret Thatcher
Well it used to be about trying to do something, now it is about trying to be someone -- Margaret Thatcher
Dictators can be deterred, they can be crushed-but they can never be appeased. -- Margaret Thatcher
There is nothing inevitable about rising unemployment. -- Margaret Thatcher
Life in a free society ... is heaven on earth to life in a socialist society such as Russia. -- Margaret Thatcher
What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose. -- Margaret Thatcher
In order to unscramble some eggs the leader gotta have some balls -- Margaret Thatcher
As the former dissident Vladimir Bukovsky one remarked
referring to the Russian proverb to the effect that you cannot make an omlette without breaking eggs
he had seen plenty of broken eggs, but had never tasted any omlette. -- Margaret Thatcher
Socialists have always spent much of their time seeking new titles for their beliefs, because the old versions so quickly become outdated and discredited. -- Margaret Thatcher
There are no personal sympathies in politics. -- Margaret Thatcher
Remember the 'Parable of the Talents' in the New Testament? Christ exhorts us to be the best we can be by developing our skills and abilities, by succeeding in all our tasks and endeavors. What better description can there be of capitalism? -- Margaret Thatcher
We are not in politics to ignore peoples' worries, we are in politics to deal with them. -- Margaret Thatcher
I think Essex Man will vote for a Conservative Government. -- Margaret Thatcher
You do not achieve anything without trouble, ever. -- Margaret Thatcher
My job is to stop Britain from going red. -- Margaret Thatcher
We do not have a freehold on the earth, only a full repairing lease -- Margaret Thatcher
When all the objectives of government include the achievement of equality - other than equality before the law - that government poses a threat to liberty. -- Margaret Thatcher
You don't tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive. -- Margaret Thatcher
Our aim is to make tax collecting a declining industry. -- Margaret Thatcher
The application of collective guilt, running from one generation to another, is a dangerous doctrine which would leave few modern nations unscathed. -- Margaret Thatcher
First you win the argument, then you win the vote. -- Margaret Thatcher
When will Labour learn that you cannot build Jerusalem in Brussels. -- Margaret Thatcher
I hate feminism. It is poison, -- Margaret Thatcher
A leader is someone who knows what they want to achieve and can communicate that. -- Margaret Thatcher
They [Federalist European Politicians] divide their time between court room, prison and debating chamber - giving a whole new meaning to the term 'conviction politician'. -- Margaret Thatcher
I remain totally convinced that when children are young, however busy we may be with the practical duties inside the home, themost important thing of all is to devbote enoughh time and care to their needs and problems. -- Margaret Thatcher
I like Mr. Gorbachev, we can do business together. -- Margaret Thatcher
Why in the world anyone in America is allowing another language (other than English) to be his first ... I don't know -- Margaret Thatcher
We shall take whatever action is necessary to contain the growth of the money supply. The government, unlike so many of its predecessors, will face up to economic realities. -- Margaret Thatcher
A week is a long time in politics -- Margaret Thatcher
If you want to get something said in the politics tell a man. If you want to get something done in the politics tell a woman -- Margaret Thatcher
New ideas are created when they can be discussed freely, but if there is a CORRECT view then you cease to have new ideas -- Margaret Thatcher
I shan't be pulling the levers there but I shall be a very good back-seat driver. -- Margaret Thatcher
I have very strong views about Europe. We're quite the best country. We rescued them. We're not going to get entangled with them. We've got to keep our own independence. Is that clear? -- Margaret Thatcher
They are all a rotten lot. Schmidt and the Americans and we are the only people who would do any standing up and fighting if necessary. -- Margaret Thatcher
Russia is bent on world domination. -- Margaret Thatcher
Failure? The possibilities do not exist. -- Margaret Thatcher
I never hugged him, I bombed him. -- Margaret Thatcher
I owe a great deal to the church for everything in which I believe. I am very glad that I was brought up strictly. I was a very serious child. There was not a lot of fun and sparkle in my life. -- Margaret Thatcher
The wisdom of hindsight, so useful to historians and indeed to authors of memoirs, is sadly denied to practicing politicians. -- Margaret Thatcher
The desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom -- Margaret Thatcher
The real case against socialism is not its economic inefficiency, though on all sides there is evidence of that. Much more fundamental is its basic immorality. -- Margaret Thatcher
I don't want to fight any wars; if you can get them off before we get there, you do it, but off they go. -- Margaret Thatcher
We simply cannot delegate the exercise of mercy and generosity to others. -- Margaret Thatcher
If your only opportunity is to be equal then it is not opportunity. -- Margaret Thatcher
Most women are far more intelligent than people give them credit for. -- Margaret Thatcher
I might have preferred iron, but bronze will do. It won't rust. And, this time I hope, the head will stay on. -- Margaret Thatcher
I've got my teeth into him, and I'm not going to let go. -- Margaret Thatcher
If you go into what I call a bubble boom, every bubble bursts. -- Margaret Thatcher
We're saying to anyone who dares to attack us, Do not do it, you couldn't win, the result would be devastating! I think you're saying the same. -- Margaret Thatcher
Tyranny must not prevail. -- Margaret Thatcher
I am not hard - I'm frightfully soft. But I will not be hounded -- Margaret Thatcher
A quick cure is a quack cure. -- Margaret Thatcher
Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan -- Margaret Thatcher
The acid test of politics is not what you say at the hustings, but what you actually do in government. -- Margaret Thatcher
You cannot make an omelet without breaking some balls -- Margaret Thatcher
I wasn't lucky, I deserved it. -- Margaret Thatcher
We are a British nation with British characteristics. Every country can take some small minorities and in many ways they add to the richness and variety of this country. The moment the minority threatens to become a big one, people get frightened. -- Margaret Thatcher
You know the critical thing with the Communist countries is Communism, which by definition consists of control by the government. -- Margaret Thatcher
You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. -- Margaret Thatcher
It may be the cock that crows, but it is the hen that lays the eggs. -- Margaret Thatcher