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Margaret Thatcher

347 quotes

“Let me make one thing absolutely clear. The National Health Service is safe with us.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Conservative Party Conference (8 October 1982)
“The point of having nuclear weapons is to deter a war of any kind. They have succeeded in doing so for the past 37 years. To be an effective deterrent a potential aggressor must believe that under certain circumstances such weapons will be used.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Prime Minister's Questions (1 February 1983)
“Peace is not bought cheaply. It cannot be won without cost. The cost of Britain's defence is the price we pay to prevent war. The money for our armed services is truly our “peace tax”. What a cruel irony it is that the word “peace” has been hijacked by those who seek one-sided disarmament. It's ironic because if only one side disarms, the other is far more tempted to aggression. Unilateralism makes war more likely. We who believe in strong defence are the true peace party.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Young Conservative Conference (12 February 1983)
“The right hon. Gentleman is afraid of an election is he? Oh, if I were going to cut and run I'd have gone after the Falklands. Afraid? Frightened? Frit? Couldn't take it? Couldn't stand it? Right now inflation is lower than it has been for thirteen years, a record the right hon. Gentleman couldn't begin to touch!”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Prime Minister's Questions (19 April 1983). The use of 'frit', an unusual Lincolnshire dialect abbreviation of 'frightened' which Mrs Thatcher evidently recalled from childhood, was missed by MPs in a noisy chamber but …
“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 (1925–2013) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Perth, Scotland (13 May 1983), quoted in New York Times (14 May 1983) "British Vote Campaign Gets Off to Angry Start
“Under a Labour Government, there's virtually nowhere you could put your savings where they would be safe from the state. They want your money for State Socialism, and they would mean to get it if they got in. Put your savings in the bank—and they'll nationalise it. Put your savings in a pension fund or a life assurance company—and a Labour Government would force them to invest the money in their own socialist schemes. Put your savings in your socks and they'd nationalise socks.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Cardiff (23 May 1983)
“Peace, freedom and justice are only to be found where people are prepared to defend them.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Conservative Party Convention 1982
“What do you think of those two?”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Unfortunately in our education system youngsters are still not given sufficient encouragement to go into industry or commerce and not told that it is a good thing to make an honest profit. They should be told that if you don't make a profit, you won't be in business very long because you haven't anything to plow back for tomorrow. You make your profit by pleasing others so you have to make it honestly.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview for Director magazine (4 July 1983), quoted in Chris Ogden, Maggie: An Intimate Portrait of a Woman in Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), p. 345.
“Our people will never keep the Red Flag flying here. There is only one banner that Britain flies, the one that has kept flying for centuries—the red, white and blue.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1925–2013) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Conservative Party Conference (14 October 1983)
“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 (1925–2013) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Small Business Bureau Conference (8 February 1984)
“I believe the police are upholding the law. They are not upholding the Government. This is not a dispute between miners and Government. This is a dispute between miners and miners. They have in their constitution the right to have a ballot. They have not been able to have a national ballot yet. Many of them have had local ballots. This is a dispute between miners and miners. It is some of the miners who are trying to stop other miners going to work. It is the police who are in charge of upholding the law...The police have been wonderful.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: TV Interview for BBC1 Panorama (9 April 1984) on the 1984-1985 Miners' Strike
“You saw the scenes that went on in television last night. I must tell you that what we have got is an attempt to substitute the rule of the mob for the rule of law, and it must not succeed. It must not succeed. There are those who are using violence and intimidation to impose their will on others who do not want it...Ladies and Gentlemen we need the support of everyone in this battle which goes to the very heart of our society. The rule of law must prevail over the rule of the mob.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks on Orgreave picketing (30 May 1984)
“The United States has no socialist party, or no socialist party has been in power. That is the reason why it has always been the country of last resort for every currency.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview for The Times (31 May 1984)
“We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands and now we have to fight the enemy within, which is much more difficult but just as dangerous to liberty.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to 1922 Committee (19 July 1984), quoted in John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher. The Iron Lady (London: Jonathan Cape, 2003), p. 361.
“The violence and intimidation we have seen should never have happened. It is the work of extremists. It is the enemy within.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: TV Interview for BBC2 Newsnight (27 July 1984)
“We heard moving accounts from two working miners about just what they have to face as they try to make their way to work. The sheer bravery of those men and thousands like them who kept the mining industry alive is beyond praise. “Scabs” their former workmates call them. Scabs? They are lions!”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Conservative Party Conference (12 October 1984)
“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. It is what you are and what you can do for our country that counts. That is our vision.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Conservative Party Conference (12 October 1984)
“It was a lovely morning. We have not had many lovely days. And the sun was just coming through the stained glass windows and falling on some flowers right across the church and it just occurred to me that this was the day I was meant not to see.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: TV Interview for Channel 4 A plus 4 (15 October 1984), referring to the Brighton bombing in which the IRA attempted to assassinate her.
“I personally have always voted for the death penalty because I believe that people who go out prepared to take the lives of other people forfeit their own right to live. I believe that that death penalty should be used only very rarely, but I believe that no-one should go out certain that no matter how cruel, how vicious, how hideous their murder, they themselves will not suffer the death penalty.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: TV Interview for Channel 4 A plus 4 (15 October 1984)
“We suffered a tragedy not one of us could have thought would happen in our country. And we picked ourselves up and sorted ourselves out as all good British people do, and I thought, let us stand together for we are British! They were trying to destroy the fundamental freedom that is the birth-right of every British citizen, freedom, justice and democracy.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Finchley Conservatives (20 October 1984) on the Brighton bombing
“I have made it quite clear – and so did Mr Prior when he was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland – that a unified Ireland was one solution. That is out. A second solution was confederation of two states. That is out. A third solution was joint authority. That is out. That is a derogation from sovereignty.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Press conference after an Anglo-Irish summit (19 November 1984). "Mr Prior" is James Prior.
“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 (1925–2013) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Second Carlton Lecture (26 November 1984)
“Oh, but you know, you do not achieve anything without trouble, ever.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: TV Interview for ITV (30 November 1984)
“I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together.]]”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: TV Interview for BBC (17 December 1984)
“You never compromise with violence. You never compromise with intimidation. You never compromise by those who want to use those to extinguish freedom and democracy, because if you do then the very things for which you stand are extinguished.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: TV Interview for Channel 4 A Week in Politics (1 February 1985)
“If they do not wish to confer the honour, I am the last person who would wish to receive it.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks after Oxford University voted not to award her an honorary degree. Mail on Sunday (3 February 1985), quoted in John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher. The Iron Lady (London: Jonathan Cape, 2003), p. 399.
“I'm the world's greatest fan of your President [Ronald Reagan], as you know. I think he's done terrific things and I think that in his recent speech, the keynote that he struck, that America is a confident leader of the free world, is the right one and I'm absolutely delighted at the way in which confidence had returned to the United States.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview for Business Week Magazine (11 February 1985).
“I support very much the approaches that the President [Ronald Reagan] is taking. As you know, I am his greatest fan!”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: TV Interview for CBS 60 Minutes (15 February 1985)
“We had to make certain that violence and intimidation and impossible demands could not win. There would have been neither freedom nor order in Britain if we had given in to violence. There would have been no hope for any prosperous industry if people had gone on strike, really, for bigger and bigger subsidies from the tax-payers, because in the end it is the tax-payers who pay these subsidies. So that is over.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks on the end of the miners' strike (3 March 1985)
“We must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the American Bar Association (15 July 1985).
“Don't you think that's the way to persuade more companies to come to this region and get more jobs—because I want them—for the people who are unemployed. Not always standing there as moaning minnies. Now stop it!”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to Tyne Tees TV (11 September 1985)
“Home really was very small and we had no mod cons and I remember having a dream that the one thing I really wanted was to live in a nice house, you know, a house with more things than we had...We had not got hot water. We only had a cold water tap. We had to heat all the hot water in a copper. There was an outside toilet. So when people tell me about these things, I know about them.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: TV Interview for Yorkshire Television Woman to Woman (2 October 1985)
“We will not reflate...Past governments have tried that. Past governments have deliberately created inflation in the hope of reducing unemployment. It always finished up with worse inflation and worse unemployment. Mr President, You can't build a secure future on dishonest money. And there is a fundamental truth, from which no government can escape.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Conservative Party Conference (11 October 1985)
“I detest apartheid. I couldn't stand being excluded or discriminated against because of the colour of my own skin. And if you can't stand a colour bar against yourself, you can't stand it against anyone else. Apartheid is wrong and it must go.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Lord Mayor’s Banquet (11 November 1985)
“I believe in the British lion and I believe that the British character is lion-hearted, and I believe that it has not been lion-hearted in some of the post-War period, and I want it to get back to being lion hearted.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Radio Interview for BBC Radio 3 (17 December 1985)
“I'm absolutely amazed when some people say I am either hard or uncaring, because it's so utterly untrue. I can't say it because, if you say you are caring, it's like saying, ‘I'm a very modest person.’ Nobody believes you.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview for Daily Express (19 February 1986)
“Let me say this, if you want someone weak you don't want me, there are plenty of others to choose from.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Radio Interview for BBC Radio 2 Jimmy Young Programme (26 February 1986)
“In my work, you get used to criticisms. Of course you do, because there are a lot of people trying to get you down, but I always cheer up immensely if one is particularly wounding because I think well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. That is why my father always taught me: never worry about anyone who attacks you personally; it means their arguments carry no weight and they know it.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From an interview for Italian television (RAI) (10 March 1986)
“Seven years ago, who would have dared forecast such a transformation of Britain. This didn't come about because of consensus. It happened because we said: this we believe, this we will do. It's called leadership.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Conservative Central Council (15 March 1986)
“Conservatism is not some abstract theory. It's a crusade to put power in the hands of ordinary people. And a very popular crusade it is proving. Tenants are jumping at the opportunity to buy their own council houses. Workers are jumping at the opportunity to buy shares in their own privatised companies. Trade unionists are jumping at the opportunity, which the ballot box now gives them, to decide “who rules” in their union. And the rest of Britain is looking on with approval. For popular capitalism is biting deep.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Conservative Central Council (15 March 1986)
“Popular capitalism, which is the economic expression of liberty, is proving a much more attractive means for diffusing power in our society. 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. To us Conservatives, popular capitalism means what it says: power through ownership to the man and woman in the street, given confidently with an open hand.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Conservative Central Council (15 March 1986)
“Because you see, it is not as if you are judged wholly on what you say. You are up against people who deliberately set out to twist what you say to make it mean other things, and that I am afraid is part of the job, part of the world in which one lives.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview for Parade magazine (17 April 1986)
“You will quite often hear people say: “Well look, she is the best man in politics,” and I say: “Oh no, much better than that; she is the best woman.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: TV Interview for Central TV (18 June 1986)
“In a decision of the utmost gravity, Labour voted to give up Britain's independent nuclear deterrent unilaterally. Labour's defence policy—though "defence" is scarcely the word—is an absolute break with the defence policy of every British Government since the Second World War. Let there be no doubt about the gravity of that decision. You cannot be a loyal member of NATO while disavowing its fundamental strategy. A Labour Britain would be a neutralist Britain. It would be the greatest gain for the Soviet Union in forty years. And they would have got it without firing a shot.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Conservative Party Conference (10 October 1986)
“A world without nuclear weapons may be a dream but you cannot base a sure defence on dreams. Without far greater trust and confidence between East and West than exists at present, a world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at a Soviet Official banquet, St George's Halls, the Kremlin (30 March 1987)
“I hope to go on and on.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: TV Interview for BBC (11 May 1987)
“I, along with something like 5 million other people, insure to enable me to go into hospital on the day I want; at the time I want, and with a doctor I want.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Answering questions at a general election news conference (4 June 1987). Mrs Thatcher had been asked if she trusted the Health Service enough to put herself in its hands, a reference to her use of private health insuran…
“I believe passionately that people have a right, by their own efforts, to benefit their own families, so we have taken down taxation. It doesn't matter to me who you are or what your background is. If you want to use your own efforts to work harder—yes, I am with you all the way, whether it is unskilled effort or whether it is skilled, we have taken the income tax down.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: TV Interview for BBC1 Panorama (8 June 1987)