Thatcher Quotes

The larger the slice taken by government, the smaller the cake available for everyone. ~ Margaret Thatcher

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece - all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round - more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back. ~ Mark Twain

Dogs are more loyal. Cats are fickle. ~ Carol Thatcher

We Conservatives hate unemployment. ~ Margaret Thatcher

Then there was David, lording it up at Buckingham Palace, thinking he was king of the shit heap. That guy was definitely nuts, like every dictator that had gone before him. Nero, Caligula, Henry the Eighth, Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Margaret Thatcher, Colonel Gaddafi, that crazy North Korean bastard who was in Team America, Kim Jong whatever. ~ Charlie Higson

Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus. ~ 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 constantly requesting government intervention are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours. ~ Margaret Thatcher

Every woman needs at least one of each of these friends (and all in one works): Someone who will drink and/or eat cookie dough in times of stress, someone who will take off her earrings and do battle, someone who will listen to all of your secrets, no matter how dark and NOT TELL, someone with the courage to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and someone who will play the role of fool to lift your spirits. ~ Susan 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

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

No British politician has ever been more despised by the British people than Margaret Thatcher. ~ Morrissey

Socialists don't like ordinary people choosing, for they might not choose socialism. ~ 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

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

I wasn't absolutely too sure where the Falklands was, and I didn't want to make a bloody fool of myself. ~ Denis Thatcher

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

There are things a man can't undo, that a man can't disavow. But time has a way of making one see what is important, what is necessary and how change isn't always the bitter potion it is made out to be. – previous Duke of Hollindrake (grandfather to Thatcher, the tenth Duke of Hollindrake {hero}) ~ Elizabeth Boyle

[When asked how it felt to be a female prime minister:] I don't know: I've never experienced the alternative. ~ Margaret Thatcher

What I said was Britain was ready for another Hitler, which is quite a different thing to saying it needs another Hitler. I stand by that opinion - in fact I was ahead of my time in voicing it. There are in Britain right now parallels with the rise of the Nazi Party in pre-war Germany. A demoralised nation whose empire had disintegrated." Two years later, Margaret Thatcher was elected.
- Quoting David Bowie from 1977 ~ Mark Paytress

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

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

I have never knowingly made a non-controversial speech in my life. ~ Margaret Thatcher

When people are free to choose, they choose freedom ~ Margaret Thatcher

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 ~ Donald Rumsfeld

The sight of the eye, the hearing of the ear, the touch of the hand may each and all be deceived, but the instructions of the spirit are in all things correct. The combined senses may misguide or fail, but he who happily secures the companionship of the Holy Spirit, walks in the ways of life and neither fears, becomes weary nor faints by the wayside. ~ Moses Thatcher

But what Liberty would remember best was the feel of his own small hand gathered in the warm, comforting grip of the man, those times alone when all of Thatcher's potent attention was concentrated on his son, as something inside Liberty always insisted, occasionally to contrary evidence that it should be, their trips together, their talks, the information about the sorry state of the world Thatcher shared reluctantly, almost sadly, with his son and heir out of a conviction that I do not enjoy having to tell you these things, but it is important you hear this news, no matter how distasteful, because, unfortunately, it is the truth, whereas it is lies and the promulgation of lies that will make you and the people in your life sick. ~ Stephen Wright

There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty. ~ 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

The Margaret Thatcher syndrome, that is, the woman who achieves seniority, but refuses any gender identification and indeed whose policies harmed many women, highlights that gender sensitivity is more significant in leading change than the biological sex of post-holders. ~ Louise Morley

If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman. ~ Margaret Thatcher

Of course, to be a mother and a housewife is a vocation of a very high kind. But I simply felt that it was not the whole of my vocation. I knew that I also wanted a career. A phrase that Irene Ward, MP for Tynemouth, and I often used was that 'while the home must always be the centre of one's life, it should not be the boundary of one's ambitions'. ~ Margaret Thatcher

Two famous happy warriors - Reagan and his political soulmate, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - knew they were fighting their own ideological and external wars. But they did so with the sunny dispositions and positive outlooks of those who knew they were on the right side of history. ~ Monica Crowley

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

Not long after we started working for him I asked Bernard if he thought Thatcher was evil,'I said. 'He said it was like asking what jazz is. ~ Jack Womack

Some people are happy to give feminists credit for things they fear - like abortion rights, contraception for teenagers, or gay liberation - but less willing to acknowledge that feminist activism brought about things they support, like better treatment for breast cancer or the opportunity for young girls to play soccer as well as lead cheers.

As Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon observe, "Although the word 'feminist' has become a pejorative term for to some American women, most women (and most men as well) support a feminist program: equal education, equal pay, child care, freedom from harassment and violence," and so on. ~ Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

We need to create a mood where it is everywhere thought morally right for as many people as possible to acquire capital. ~ Margaret Thatcher

He was flying over India now, still making notes. He remembered hearing an Indian politician on TV talking about the British prime minister and being unable to pronounce her name properly. "Mrs. Torture," he kept saying. "Mrs. Margaret Torture." This was unaccountably funny. ~ Salman Rushdie

In the time of Mrs Thatcher the church, to give it its due, spoke out and was an enemy of the Conservative government. ~ Alan Green

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 government are considering spending £3million on a state funeral for Margaret Thatcher when she dies. For £3million they could buy everyone in Scotland a shovel, and we'll dig a hole deep enough to deliver her to Satan ourselves. ~ Frankie Boyle

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

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

She ( Margaret Thatcher )is democratic enough to talk down to anyone ~ Austin Mitchell

The whole of the situation of the Conservative Party today springs from that night when they dismissed the best prime minister the country had had since Churchill. ~ Denis 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

New technology is the true friend of full employment; the indispensable ally of progress; and the surest guarantee of prosperity. ~ 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

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

Then she said, with mock horror, "She's going to bring some of her old wigs, if you can believe it." She rubbed her bare head with her free hand. "I'll look like a zombie Margaret Thatcher. ~ Patrick Ness

You cannot make an omelet without breaking some balls ~ 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

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

Let's make it clear: the Conservative Party has no plans for new NHS charges. ~ 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

Personal virtue is no substitute for political hard-headedness. ~ 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

The facts of life are conservative. ~ Margaret Thatcher

We have not noticed how fast the rest has risen. Most of the industrialized world--and a good part of the nonindustrialized world as well--has better cell phone service than the United States. Broadband is faster and cheaper across the industrial world, from Canada to France to Japan, and the United States now stands sixteenth in the world in broadband penetration per capita. Americans are constantly told by their politicians that the only thing we have to learn from other countries' health care systems is to be thankful for ours. Most Americans ignore the fact that a third of the country's public schools are totally dysfunctional (because their children go to the other two-thirds). The American litigation system is now routinely referred to as a huge cost to doing business, but no one dares propose any reform of it. Our mortgage deduction for housing costs a staggering $80 billion a year, and we are told it is crucial to support home ownership, except that Margaret Thatcher eliminated it in Britain, and yet that country has the same rate of home ownership as the United States. We rarely look around and notice other options and alternatives, convinced that "we're number one. ~ Fareed Zakaria

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

For the first time perhaps since Margaret Thatcher, we will have at the head of the Conservative Party someone who is genuinely an equal match for Tony Blair. ~ Tim Yeo

You and I come by road or rail, but economists travel on infrastructure. ~ Margaret Thatcher

In London - and forget those extra public pressures on politicians - the lovely old Sloane world of manor houses simply hasn't cut it since Big Bang in 1986, the point at which Mrs. Thatcher really started to achieve her ambition to make this country more like America - its ambition, economy, it's very tangible measures of success. ~ Peter York

This lady is not for turning. ~ Margaret Thatcher

They talked about the incubators for a while, which he told her that he'd built himself. Then he showed her an ancient motorcycle with a few shiny new parts, and explained shyly that it was a Harley Super Glide, and he was restoring it. He'd brought her up to the loft, where there was a breathtaking view of the ranch spread and the horse fields. Then they sat in the gorgeous horse-drawn carriage that Mr. Thatcher always brought to town events and talked about school, life on the ranch, everything and anything. ~ Morgan Blaze

John Redwood is a young man but, let's face it, so was Margaret Thatcher in 1975. ~ Edward Leigh

You turn if you want to. The Lady's not for turning. ~ 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

And who is the hero of that story? Who slew the dragon [totalitarianism]? Yes, it was the ordinary man, the taxpayer, the grunt who fought and won the wars. Yes, it was America and its allies. Yes, it was the great leaders: FDR, de Gaulle, Adenauer, Truman, John Paul II, Thatcher, Reagan. But above all, victory required one man without whom the fight would have been lost at the beginning. It required Winston Churchill. ~ Charles Krauthammer

Margaret Thatcher was the first political leader in any major country to warn of the dangers of climate change ~ Ed Miliband

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

Right," Thatcher said, "let's have a look at her."
Katherine hesitated. The kitten was fast asleep in her arms and she was afraid to wake her.
"Something amiss?" Thatcher asked.
Katherine giggled at her capricious emotions and shoved the kitten into the surgeon's arms. The animal woke up as Thatcher examined it. He set the kitten on the deck and watched as she wobbled around on clumsy paws. "Yes," Thatcher nodded conclusively. "This is indeed a cat. ~ Matt Tomerlin

No great goal was ever easily achieved. ~ Margaret Thatcher

For all the worship that Ronald Reagan elicits in conservative circles in the United States, I would venture that Thatcher did far more to reshape British society than Reagan did here. ~ Jon Weisman

Revisionist historians are about to get their hands on the Thatcher years, shes probably going to be looked at again because she feels far enough away now, and we dont see her much on the political landscape in this country, shes kind of disappeared and she doesnt speak out much anymore. ~ Jonathan Coe

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

The spirit of the South Atlantic was the spirit of Britain at her best. It has been said that we surprised the world, that British patriotism was rediscovered in those spring days. It was never really lost. But it would be no bad thing if the feeling that swept the country then were to continue to inspire us. For if there was any doubt about the determination of the British people it was removed by the men and women who, a few months ago, brought a renewed sense of pride and self-respect to our country. ~ 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

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

Constitutions have to be written on hearts, not just paper. ~ Margaret Thatcher

But let me tell you, this gender thing is history. You're looking at a guy who sat down with Margaret Thatcher across the table and talked about serious issues. ~ George H. W. Bush

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

I have an ambivalent relationship with Margaret Thatcher. She came to power in May 1979 - a month before my 11th birthday. I was far too young to have developed a great deal of political awareness. I remember it, though - my mother excited at the dinner table because Britain had its first female prime minister. ~ Sara Sheridan

Fackelmann claimed to have started a Log just to keep track of Kite's attempted pickup lines
surefire lines like e.g. 'You're the second most beautiful woman I've ever seen, the first most beautiful woman I've ever seem being former Bristish Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,' and 'If you came home with me I'm unusually confident that I could achieve an erection,' and said that if Kite wasn't still cherry at twenty-three and a half it was proof of some kind of divine-type grace. ~ David Foster Wallace

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

[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. ~ Margaret Thatcher

Like Marxism, Thatcherism is, in fact, riddled with contradictions. Mrs. Thatcher, on the other hand, is free of doubt; she is the label on the can of worms. ~ Julian Critchley

There is a nonsense about intelligent women not being beautiful. ~ Margaret Thatcher

A leader is someone who knows what they want to achieve and can communicate that. ~ 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

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

Citizenship should be based on those who have a close and real relationship with this country and its inhabitants. ~ Margaret Thatcher

Spare me this sanctimony about politeness, please. There are millions of people in this country who hate the very word 'Thatcher' and 'Thatcherism,' which continues until this day. ~ George Galloway

(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

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

The larger Europe grows, the more diverse must be the forms of co-operation it requires. Instead of a centralised bureaucracy, the model should be a market - not only a market of individuals and companies, but also a market in which the players are governments.
Thus governments would compete with each other for foreign investments, top management and high earners through lower taxes and less regulation.
Such a market would impose a fiscal discipline on governments because they would not want to drive away expertise and business.
It would also help to establish which fiscal and regulatory policies produced the best overall economic results.
No wonder socialists don't like it. ~ Margaret Thatcher

John O'Sullivan has forcefully argued that the simultaneous presence in the highest offices of Reagan, Thatcher and Pope John Paul II was the cause of the Soviet collapse. ~ Roger Scruton

Let our children grow tall and some taller than others if they have it in them to do so. ~ Margaret Thatcher

I think our support for the EEC has been very half-hearted. You really cannot join any group of nations and spend all your time criticizing it. The EEC is free Europe getting together. Had we had some vision like that after the First World War, we might never had the Second. My son does not have to go and fight as his father had to fight. Surely that is the most valuable thing of all, the reason for keeping Europe together. ~ Margaret Thatcher