Margaret Thatcher Quotes
Margaret Thatcher Quotes
If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.
To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukemia with leeches.
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, the power to the State.
The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of everyone else’s money.
Consensus: “The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: ‘I stand for consensus?
The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples’ money.
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.
Power is like being a lady… if you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.
If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.
Consensus is the negation of leadership.
I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.
I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it.
Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.
Socialism lays an bad egg by killing the capitalism that lays the golden eggs
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.
am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
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, independence, with every man a property owner, every man a capitalist.
Peace is hard work and we must not allow people to forget it.
There are still people in my party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors… I mean it.
The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples’ money.
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.
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.
I love argument, I love debate. I don’t expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that’s not their job.
If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.
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.
If one generation is expected to carry an excessive burden on behalf of another, it will seek by every means to avoid it. It will either demand that past promises are broken, or it will not work, or it will not pay taxes, or the most talented people will leave. Socialist governments which have tried to tax ’till the pips squeak’ have ample experience of that.
You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.
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.
Our aim is to make tax collecting a declining industry.
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.
There are significant differences between the American and European version of capitalism. The American traditionally emphasizes the need for limited government, light regulations, low taxes and maximum labor-market flexibility. Its success has been shown above all in the ability to create new jobs, in which it is consistently more successful than Europe.
Socialism’s results have ranged between the merely shabby and the truly catastrophic – poverty, strife, oppression and, on the killing fields of communism, the deaths this century of perhaps 100 million people. Against that doctrine was set a contrary, conservative belief in a law-governed liberty. It was this view which triumphed with the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. Since then, the Left has sought rehabilitation by distancing itself from its past.
You know the critical thing with the Communist countries is Communism, which by definition consists of control by the government.
Communism produces neither dignity nor prosperity. It takes all power away from the people and places it in the hands of a self-appointed elite. And because it distorts and manipulates the distinctive talents of individuals rather than letting those talents flourish, it prevents progress and prosperity.
I hate extremes of any kind. Communism [seeks] the domination of the state over the individual… All my life I have stood against banning Communism or other extremist organizations because, if you do that, they go underground and it gives them an excitement that they don’t get if they are allowed to pursue their policies openly. We’ll beat them into the ground on the argument.
All corporatism – even when practiced in societies where hard work, enterprise and cooperation are as highly valued as in Korea – encourages inflexibility, discourages individual accountability, and risks magnifying errors by concealing them.
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.
I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work.
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.
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Margaret Thatcher Quotes on Leadership
The first step in calculating which way to go is to find out where you are.
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.
Don’t follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.
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 Quotes on Environment
What we are now doing to the world, by degrading the land surfaces, by polluting the waters and by adding greenhouse gases to the air at an unprecedented rate – all this is new in the experience of the earth. It is mankind and his activities that are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways.
Margaret Thatcher Quotes on Taxes
You want to keep more of the money you earn? I’m afraid that’s very selfish. We shall want to tax that away. You want to own shares in your firm? We can’t have that. The state has to own your firm. You want to choose where to send your children to school? That’s very divisive. You’ll send your child where we tell you.
Good Conservatives always pay their bills. And on time. Not like the Socialists who run up other people’s bills.
It is your tax which pays for public spending. The government have no money of their own. There is only taxpayers’ money.
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 Quotes about Character
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.
Margaret Thatcher Quotes about Thinking
Let us never forget this fundamental truth: The State has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves. If the State wishes to spend more it can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing, you more. It is no good thinking that someone else will pay – that ‘someone else’ is you. There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers’ money.
Margaret Thatcher Quotes if you want something done
If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.
Margaret Thatcher Quotes on Socialism
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.
Socialists don’t like ordinary people choosing, for they might not choose socialism.
Socialism is in no way a curate’s egg
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.
Inspirational Margaret Thatcher Quotes
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.
Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.
No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; he had money as well.
To wear your heart on your sleeve isn’t a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.
Margaret Thatcher Quotes on Politics
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.
One of the things being in politics has taught me is that men are not a reasoned or reasonable sex.
Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them.
There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.
Margaret Thatcher Quotes Falklands
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 endeavor, and, I believe, the resolve, of every Member of this House.
No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; he had money as well.
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.
Occupied Falklands are the thorn in my balls
Margaret Thatcher Quotes on America
Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.
Margaret Thatcher Quotes Watch your Thoughts
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.
Margaret Thatcher Quotes on Class
Now, I have always wanted to agree with Lady Bracknell that there is no earthly use for the upper and lower classes unless they set each other a good example. But I shouldn’t pretend that the consensus itself was any of my concern. It was absurd and slightly despicable, in the first decade of Thatcher and Reagan, to hear former and actual radicals intone piously against ‘the politics of confrontation.’ I suppose that, if this collection has a point, it is the desire of one individual to see the idea of confrontation kept alive.
Margaret Thatcher Quotes on Europe
What we should grasp, however, from the lessons of European history is that, first, there is nothing necessarily benevolent about programmers of European integration; second, the desire to achieve grand Utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom; and third, European unity has been tried before, and the outcome was far from happy.
Margaret Thatcher Quotes on Society
There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.
Life in a free society…is heaven on earth to life in a socialist society such as Russia.
The truths of the Judaic-Christian tradition, are infinitely precious, not only, as I believe, because they are true, but also because they provide the moral impulse which alone can lead to that peace, in the true meaning of the word, for which we all long. . . . There is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves.
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 Quotes on Communism
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.
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 believe our way of life is infinitely superior for every human being than any which the Communist creed can offer.
The role of Ronald Reagan had been deliberately diminished; the role of the Europeans, who, with the exception of Helmet Kohl, were often keen to undermine America when it mattered, had been sanitized; and the role of Mr. Gorbachev, who had failed spectacularly in his declared objective of saving communism and the Soviet Union, had been absurdly misunderstood.
Margaret Thatcher Quotes on Habits
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.
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.
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.
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 Quotes Lady
Power is like being a lady… if you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.
Margaret Thatcher Quotes about Ireland
liars, and that’s what you have to remember so just don’t forget it’, and with that she waltzed off.
You can’t trust the Irish; they are all liars
Margaret Thatcher Quotes on Feminism
I hate feminism. It is poison.
I hope we shall see more and 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.
