Margaret Thatcher Quotes

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.

When you stop a dictator, there are always risks. But there are greater risks in not stopping a dictator.

Socialism is in no way a curate's egg

Being prime minister is a lonely job ... you cannot lead from the crowd.

I wasn't lucky, I deserved it.

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.

I am always on the job.

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

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.

In order to unscramble some eggs the leader gotta have some balls

I've learned one thing in politics. You don't take a decision until you have to.

Life's greatest reward is life itself

Individualism has come in for an enormous amount of criticism over the years. It still does. It is widely assumed to be synonymous with selfishness ... But the main reason why so many people in power have always disliked individualism is because it is individualists who are ever keenest to prevent the abuse of authority.

Making change tolerable is one of the duties of Government.

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.

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.

[M]ore than they wanted freedom, the Athenians wanted security. Yet they lost everything - security, comfort, and freedom. This was because they wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them. The freedom they were seeking was freedom from responsibility. It is no wonder, then, that they ceased to be free. In the modern world, we should recall the Athenians' dire fate whenever we confront demands for increased state paternalism.

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.

I am much nearer to creating one nation than Labour will ever be. Socialism is two nations. The privileged rulers, and everyone else. And it always gets to that. What I am desperately trying to do is create one nation with everyone being a man of property, or having the opportunity to be a man of property.

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.

People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture.

We are very fortunate to have someone else's weapons stationed on our soil, to fight those targeted on us.

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.

A man may climb Everest for himself, but at the summit he plants his country's flag.

The Labour Party believes in turning workers against owners; we believe in turning workers into owners.

The desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom

Human rights did not begin with the French Revolution ... [they] really stem from a mixture of Judaism and Christianity ... [we English] had 1688, our quiet revolution, where Parliament exerted its will over the King ... it was not the sort of Revolution that France's was ... 'Liberty, equality, fraternity' - they forgot obligations and duties I think. And then of course the fraternity went missing for a long time.

When a big man has a big idea I never like to stand in his way.

If it's me against 48, I feel sorry for the 48.

What really gets me is this - it's very ironic that those who are most critical of extra tax are those who are most vociferous in demanding extra expenditure. What gets me even more is that having demanded that extra expenditure they are not prepared to face the consequences of their own action and stand by the necessity to get the tax to pay for it. I wish some of them had a bit more guts and courage than they have.

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.

We do not have a freehold on the earth, only a full repairing lease

Inflation is the parent of unemployment and the unseen robber of those who have saved.

If I were a German today, I would be proud, proud but also worried. I would be proud of the magnificent achievement of rebuilding my country, entrenching democracy and assuming the undoubtedly preponderant position in Europe. But a united Germany can't and won't subordinate its national interests in economic or in foreign policy to those of the Community indefinitely. Germany's new pre-eminence is a fact - and its power is a problem - as much for Germans as for the rest of Europe.

Consensus is the negation of leadership.

There's no such thing as society.

You can't lead from the crowd.

Economics are the method; the object is to change the soul.

I don't mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.

Bribing regimes to comply with requirements which they should have acknowledged in the first place is not a process that appeals to me.

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.

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.

Good Conservatives always pay their bills. And on time. Not like the Socialists who run up other people's bills.

I was brought up by a Victorian Grandmother. We were taught to work jolly hard. We were taught to prove yourself; we were taught self reliance; we were taught to live within our income. You were taught that cleanliness is next to Godliness. You were taught self respect. You were taught always to give a hand to your neighbour. You were taught tremendous pride in your country. All of these things are Victorian values. They are also perennial values. You don't hear so much about these things these days, but they were good values and they led to tremendous improvements in the standard of living.

New ideas are created when they can be discussed freely, but if there is a CORRECT view then you cease to have new ideas

Political success is a good deal pleasanter than political failure, but it too brings its problems.

It pays to know the enemy - not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.

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.

It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.

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.

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.

(Not) even the US can impose peace: it has to be genuinely accepted by both parties involved.

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.

We should see to it that our people are steeped in a real knowledge and understanding of our national culture.

Rooster, maybe well crows, but the eggs still bears the chicken.

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.

In the background lurks the scourge of international terrorism. There are people exercising power in a few countries and leading political factions in others who seem to be moved by narrow, brutal and irrational impulses. Their view of their own self-interest is so blinkered as to leave no space for purely human values, for peaceful negotiation or for economic advancement. They are bent on the destruction of the established order and of civilised ways of doing business. They must never be allowed to succeed.

I call the Conservative Party now to a crusade. Not only the Conservative Party. I appeal to all those men and women of good will who do not want a Marxist future for themselves or their children or their children's children. For this is not just a fight about national solvency. It is a fight about the very foundations of the social order. It is a crusade not merely to put a temporary block on socialism but to stop its onward march once and for all.

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.

Both the President and Mr Gorbachev have said that they want to see a world without nuclear weapons. I cannot see a world without nuclear weapons. Let me be practical about it. The knowledge is there to make them. So do not go too hard for that pie in the sky because, while everyone would like to see it, I do not believe it is going to come about.

You don't win by just being against things, you only win by being for things and making your message perfectly clear.

It is not the business of politicians to please everyone.

What happened in Russia in 1917 wasn't a revolution - it was a coup d'etat.

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.

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.

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.

The people of the Falkland Islands, like the people of the United Kingdom, are an island race. They are few in number but they have the right to live in peace, to choose their own way of life and to determine their own allegiance. They way of life is British; their allegiance is to the Crown. It is the wish of the British people and the duty of Her Majesty's Government to do everything that we can to uphold that right. That will be our hope and our endeavour, and, I believe, the resolve, of every Member of this House.

Occupied Falklands are the thorn in my balls

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.

Our first duty to liberty is to keep our own. But it is also our duty - as Europeans - to keep alive in the Eastern as well as the Western half of our continent those ideas of human dignity which Europe gave to the world. Let us therefore resolve to keep the lamps of freedom burning bright so that all who look to the West from the shadows of the East need not doubt that we remain true to those human and spiritual values that lie at the heart of European civilization.

There is a nonsense about intelligent women not being beautiful.

Law and order is a social service. Crime and the fear which the threat of crime induces can paralyse whole communities, keep lonely and vulnerable elderly people shut up in their homes, scar young lives and raise to cult status the swaggering violent bully who achieves predatory control over the streets. I suspect that there would be more support and less criticism than today's political leaders imagine for a large shift of resources from Social Security benefits to law and order - as long as rhetoric about getting tough on crime was matched by practice.

You don't tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.

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.

I love his music because he was my generation. But then again, Elvis is everyone's generation, and he always will be.

From my experience let me say this: in today's world it is no bad thing for a politician to have had the benefit of a scientific background. And not only politicians. Those who work in industry, in commerce, in investment. Indeed, so important has it become that I believe we are right to make science a compulsory subject for all schoolchildren.

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.

That nations that have gone for equality, like Communism, have neither freedom nor justice nor equality, they've the greatest inequalities of all, the privileges of the politicians are far greater compared with the ordinary folk than in any other country. The nations that have gone for freedom, justice and independence of people have still freedom and justice, and they have far more equality between their people, far more respect for each individual than the other nations. Go my way. You will get freedom and justice and much less difference between people than you do in the Soviet Union.

If your only opportunity is to be equal then it is not opportunity.

We very much hope that as we get growth that we can reduce the burden of taxation, that we can reduce income tax and increase the amount of genuine free enterprise and business enterprise ... This is going ... toward the restoration of the personal responsibility, the independence, with every man a property owner, every man a capitalist.

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.

I was asked whether I was trying to restore Victorian values. I said straight out I was. And I am.

No Western nation has to build a wall round itself to keep its people in.

President Numeiri of Sudan is said to have remarked of Gadaffi that he was 'a man with a split personality - both of them evil'.

Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.

We will stand on principle or we will not stand at all.

(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.

Watch your thoughts for they become words. Watch your words for they become actions. Watch your actions for they become habits. Watch your habits for they become your character. And watch your character for it becomes your destiny. What we think, we become. My father always said that ... and I think I am fine.

My belief in free competitive economic enterprise does not rest solely or even mainly on arguments of economic efficiency, though, heaven knows, these are cogent enough. It rests essentially on the view that the free market is the only safe way of ensuring that productive effort is directed towards supplying what individuals actually want, and in a way which secures the dignity and independence of the worker.

Never believe that technology alone will allow America to prevail as a superpower.

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.

They might have beaten us at our national sport, but we managed to beat them at their national sport twice in the 20th century. [Replying to Kenneth Clarke, who said, "Isn't it terrible about losing to the Germans at our national sport?" when England lost to Germany in the 1990 FIFA World Cup Semi-final.]

[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.

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.

Just rejoice at the news and congratulate our armed forces and the Marines. Rejoice!

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?

Everything a politician promises at election time has to be paid for either by higher taxation or by borrowing.

If there is one instance in which a foreign policy I pursued met with unambiguous failure, it was my policy on German reunification.

Misgovernment ... will often be reflected in oppressive or aggressive policies towards groups within the state or towards the state's neighbours.

One hopes to achieve the zero option, but in the absence of that we must achieve balanced numbers.