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Margaret Thatcher
347 quotes
“We could have stopped this, we could still do so... But for the most part, we in the west have actually given comfort to the aggressor.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Western non-intervention in Bosnia, as reported in 'Thatcher warns of "Holocaust" risk in Bosnia appeal' by Anthony Bevins and Stephen Goodwin in The Independent (17 December 1992)
“I set out to destroy socialism because I felt it was at odds with the character of the people. We were the first country in the world to roll back the frontiers of socialism, then roll forward the frontiers of freedom. We reclaimed our heritage; we are renewing it and carrying it forward.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted from Margaret Thatcher, Article for Newsweek “Don’t undo my work” (27 April 1992)
“I didn't realise how absolutely useless they [the House of Lords] are. There they are, they just go along to collect £15,000 a year... They've got no guts. They should be defending Britain against the transfer of power to Maastricht and our loss of sovereignty and our loss of identity... If they were bigger men, they would take the risk. Actually, I think they are quite useless and they ought to be abolished. They are no good at all.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to Woodrow Wyatt (27 January 1993), quoted in Woodrow Wyatt, The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt, Volume Three, ed. Sarah Curtis (2000), p. 166
“[It is a] killing field of the like of which I thought we would never see in Europe again [and is] not worthy of Europe, not worthy of the west and not worthy of the United States... This is happening in the heart of Europe and we have not done more to stop it. It is in Europe's sphere of influence. It should be in Europe's sphere of conscience... We are little more than an accomplice to massacre.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Response to the UK Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd after he claimed that lifting the arms embargo to Bosnians would create a "level killing field", as reported in 'Thatcher says massacre brings shame on west' by Philip W…
“Clear. Decisive. Purposeful.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Douglas, Douglas, you would make Neville Chamberlain look like a warmonger.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Douglas Hurd, as quoted in "Atticus", The Sunday Times (2 May 1993)
“I could never have signed this treaty. I hope that that is clear to all who have heard me.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the House of Lords rejecting the Maastricht Treaty (7 June 1993)
“We weren't getting a fair deal on the budget and I wasn't going to have it. There's a great strand of equity and fairness in the British people – this is our characteristic. There's not a strand of equity or fairness in Europe – they're out to get as much as they can. That's one of those enormous differences. So I tackled it on that basis.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the UK's contribution to the EEC budget; interview for Thatcher: The Downing Street Years (1993), quoted in Iain Dale (ed.), As I Said to Denis...: The Margaret Thatcher Book of Quotations (1997), pp. 81-82
“When I'm out of politics I'm going to run a business, it'll be called 'rent-a-spine'.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted from an interview for the television programme "The Thatcher Years - Part 2" on BBC1 The Thatcher Years 2 of 4 (13 October 1993)
“We were the first country to attempt and to succeed in rolling back the frontiers of socialism, which is the first cousin to communism.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Socialists don't like people to do things for themselves. Socialists like to get people dependent on the state! You never build a great society that way.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[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 (1925–2013) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Imprimis, "The Moral Foundations of Society" (March 1995), an edited version of a lecture Thatcher had delivered at Hillsdale College in November 1994. In characterizing the Athenians Thatcher was paraphrasing from "Ath…
“The kind of Conservatism which he and I...favoured would be best described as "liberal", in the old-fashioned sense. And I mean the liberalism of Mr Gladstone not of the latter day collectivists. That is to say, we placed far greater confidence in individuals, families, businesses and neighbourhoods than in the State.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Keith Joseph Memorial Lecture (11 January 1996)
“I am not sure what is meant by those who say that the Party should return to something called "One Nation Conservatism". As far as I can tell by their views on European federalism, such people's creed would be better described as "No Nation Conservatism".”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Keith Joseph Memorial Lecture (11 January 1996)
“The fightback begins now!”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In a telephone call to Michael Portillo the morning after the 1997 General Election
“We fly the British flag, not these awful things you are putting on tails.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement to British Airways when they were changing their tail fin logos (9 October 1997)
“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 (1925–2013) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Scottish Tories in 1999
“On my way here I passed a local cinema and it turns out you were expecting me after all, for the billboards read: The Mummy Returns.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Conservative Election Rally in Plymouth (22 May, 2001)
“Tony Blair and New Labour. We forced our opponents to change their minds.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: At a dinner reception in 2002, as related by Conor Burns in the ConservativeHome, 11 April 2008.
“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 (1925–2013) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statue of Margaret Thatcher unveiled at British Parliament", Associated Press, 21 February 2007.
“I never hugged him, I bombed him.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Related by Conor Burns MP at Young Britons' Foundation Reception, via The Telegraph, 13th March 2011, Richard Eden
“I had applied for a job [at Imperial Chemical Industries] in 1948 and was called for a personal interview. However I failed to get selected. Many years later, I succeeded in finding out why I had been rejected. The remarks written by the selectors on my application were: "This woman is headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated!”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by K. Sathyanarayana in The Power of Humor at the Workplace (2007)
“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. Far from reversing the slow relative decline of Britain vis-à-vis its main industrial competitors, it accelerated it. We fell further behind them, until by 1979 we were widely dismissed as 'the sick man of Europe'. ... To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Chatham famously remarked: 'I know that I can save this country and that no one else can.' It would have been presumptuous of me to have compared myself to Chatham. But if I am honest, I must admit that my exhilaration came from a similar inner conviction.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was at Strasbourg...that I overheard a foreign government official make a stray remark that pleased me as much as any I can remember: 'Britain is back,' he said.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: During the European Council meeting at Strasbourg in June 1979, Thatcher had demanded a rebate in Britain's contribution to the EEC budget
“But when you are at war you cannot allow the difficulties to dominate your thinking: you have to set out with an iron will to overcome them. And anyway what was the alternative? That a common or garden dictator should rule over the Queen's subjects and prevail by fraud and violence? Not while I was prime minister.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Unlike some of my colleagues, I never ceased to believe that, other things being equal, the level of unemployment was related to the extent of trade union power. The unions had priced many of their members out of jobs by demanding excessive wages for insufficient output, so making British goods uncompetitive.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had by now come to share Nigel's high opinion of himself.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the Norman Fowlers of this world believe that they can afford to rebel, you know that things are bad.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The star of that year's conference was undoubtedly the Swedish conservative leader—since Prime Minister—who delivered a speech of such startling Thatcherite soundness that in applauding I felt as if I was giving myself a standing ovation.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have enormous admiration for the Jewish people, inside or outside Israel. There have always been Jewish members of my staff and indeed my Cabinet. In fact I just wanted a Cabinet of clever, energetic people – and frequently that turned out to be the same thing. My old constituency of Finchley has a large Jewish population. In the thirty-three years I represented it I never had a Jew come in poverty and desperation to one of my constituency surgeries. They had always been looked after by their own community.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I often wished that...Christians themselves would take closer note of the Jewish emphasis on self-help and acceptance of personal responsibility. On top of all that, the political and economic construction of Israel against huge odds and bitter adversaries is one of the heroic sagas of our age. They really made 'the desert bloom'. I only wished that Israeli emphasis on the human rights of the Russian refuseniks was matched by proper appreciation of the plight of landless and stateless Palestinians.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The colour of someone's skin should not determine his or her political rights.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I never confused the leader page of the Guardian with vox populi.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The press was full of outraged criticism of the community charge from Conservative supporters. What hurt me was that the very people who had always looked to me for protection from exploitation by the socialist state were those who were suffering most. These were the people who were just above the level at which community charge benefit stopped but who were by no means well off and who had scrimped and saved to buy their homes.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A whole class of people – an 'underclass' if you will – had been dragged back into the ranks of responsible society and asked to become not just dependants but citizens. The violent riots of 31 March in and around Trafalgar Square was their and the Left's response. And the eventual abandonment of the charge represented one of the greatest victories for these people ever conceded by a Conservative Government.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Were British democracy, parliamentary sovereignty, the common law, our traditional sense of fairness, our ability to run our own affairs in our own way to be subordinated to the demands of a remote European bureaucracy, resting on very different traditions? I had by now heard about as much of the European 'ideal' as I could take; I suspected that many others had too. In the name of this ideal, waste, corruption and abuse of power were reaching levels which no one who supported, as I had done, entry to the European Economic Community could have foreseen.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Orthodox finance, low levels of regulation and taxation, a minimal bureaucracy, strong defence, a willingness to stand up for Britain's interests wherever and whenever threatened – I did not believe that I had to open windows into men's souls on these matters. The arguments for them seemed to me to have been won. I now know that such arguments are never finally won.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was determined to accept the invitation I had earlier received from General Jaruzelski to go to Poland. I always felt the greatest affection and admiration for this nation of indomitable patriots, whose traditions and distinctive identity the Prussians, Austrians and Russians (in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) and the Nazis and communists (in the twentieth century) had sought vainly to extinguish. I could not forget the Polish airmen who had fought with the RAF against Nazism, and how a war begun over the freedom of Poland had ended leaving them trapped under tyranny.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Geoffrey Howe from this point on would be remembered not for his staunchness as Chancellor, nor for his skilful diplomacy as Foreign Secretary, but for this final act of bile and treachery. The very brilliance with which he wielded the dagger ensured that the character he assassinated was in the end his own.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was sick at heart. I could have resisted the opposition of opponents and potential rivals and even respected them for it; but what grieved me was the desertion of those I had always considered friends and allies and the weasel words whereby they had transmuted their betrayal into frank advice and concern for my fate.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nazism (national Socialism) and communism (international socialism) were but two sides of the same coin.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We all see these great calamities with different eyes, and so their impact upon us is different.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The main contribution one can make as a student to one's country in peace or wartime is to study hard and effectively.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each demand for security, whether of employment, income or social position, implied the exclusion from such benefits of those outside the particular privileged group - and would generate demands for countervailing privileges from the excluded groups. Eventually, in such a situation every will lose.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everyone had something unique to offer in life and their responsibility was to develop those gifts - and heroes come from all backgrounds.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You cannot build a great nation or brotherhood of man by spreading envy or hatred.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our opponents like to try and make you believe that Conservatism is a privilege of the few. But Conservatism conserves all that is great and best in our national heritage.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not our policy to suppress success.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our policy is not built on envy or hatred, but on liberty for the individual man or woman.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source