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Margaret Thatcher: 696 quotes74 likes

Remarks on The Constitution of Liberty by F. A. Hayek during a visit to the Conservative Research Department (summer 1975), quoted in John Ranelagh, Thatcher's People (London: HarperCollins, 1991), p. ix.
Leader of the Opposition

“Marxism has had it.”

Margaret Thatcher

Press Conference for Washington Post and Newsweek (17 November 1988) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107390 Third term as Prime Minister

“The fightback begins now!”

Margaret Thatcher

In a telephone call to Michael Portillo the morning after the 1997 General Election
Post-Prime Ministerial

“I hope to go on and on.”

Margaret Thatcher

TV Interview for BBC (11 May 1987) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106615 Second term as Prime Minister

“You've really outlined an approval of what I would call Victorian value.”

Margaret Thatcher

“The lady is not for turning.”

Margaret Thatcher

10 Downing Street, Mémoires, 1993

“When you fight – fight to win.”

Margaret Thatcher

Thatcher, Margaret (2002). Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-095912-6.

“Don't allow tyrants and aggressors to get away with it”

Margaret Thatcher

Thatcher, Margaret (2002). Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-095912-6.

“Don't take public opinion for granted – but don't either underrate the degree to which good people will endure sacrifices for a worthwhile cause”

Margaret Thatcher

Thatcher, Margaret (2002). Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-095912-6.

“Don't fall into the trap of imagining that the West can remake societies”

Margaret Thatcher

Thatcher, Margaret (2002). Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-095912-6.

“I place a profound belief—indeed a fervent faith—in the virtues of self reliance and personal independence. On these is founded the whole case for the free society, for the assertion that human progress is best achieved by offering the freest possible scope for the development of individual talents, qualified only by a respect for the qualities and the freedom of others...For many years there has been a subtle erosion of the essential virtues of the free society. Self-reliance has been sneered at as if it were an absurd suburban pretention. Thrift has been denigrated as if it were greed. The desire of parents to choose and to struggle for what they themselves regarded as the best possible education for their children has been scorned.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Conservative Central Council (15 March 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102655 Leader of the Opposition

“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 book The Downing Street Years

Source: The Downing Street Years (1993), p. 777

“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 book The Downing Street Years

Source: The Downing Street Years (1993), p. 658

“I never confused the leader page of the Guardian with vox populi.”

Margaret Thatcher book The Downing Street Years

Source: The Downing Street Years (1993), p. 561

“I was lectured on my political morality, on my preferring British jobs to black lives, on my lack of concern for human rights. One after the other, their accusations became more vitriolic and personal until I could stand it no longer. To their palpable alarm I began to tell my African critics a few home truths. I noted that they were busily trading with South Africa at the same time as they were attacking me for refusing to apply sanctions. I wondered when they intended to show similar concern about abuses in the Soviet Union, with which of course they often had not just trade but close political links. I wondered when I was going to hear them attack terrorism. I reminded them of their own less than impressive record on human rights. And when the representative from Uganda took me to task for racial discrimination, I turned on him and reminded him of the Asians which Uganda had thrown out on racial grounds, many of whom had come to settle in my constituency in North London, where they were model citizens and doing very well.”

Margaret Thatcher book The Downing Street Years

On the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at Nassau in October 1985, where Thatcher opposed sanctions on South Africa
Source: The Downing Street Years (1993), p. 517

“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 book The Downing Street Years

Source: The Downing Street Years (1993), p. 509

“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 book The Downing Street Years

Source: The Downing Street Years (1993), p. 272

“Socialism is a creed of the state. It regards ordinary human beings as the raw material for its schemes of social change. But we put our faith in people—in the millions of people who spend what they earn—not what other people earn. Who make sacrifices for their young family or their elderly parents. Who help their neighbours and take care of their neighbourhoods. The sort of people I grew up with. These are the people whom I became Leader of this Party to defend.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to the Conservative Central Council in Cheltenham (31 March 1990) https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108051 Third term as Prime Minister

“The Delors report is aimed at a federal Europe, a common currency and a common economic policy, which would take many economic policies, including fiscal policy, out of the hands of the House, and that is completely unacceptable. It would also require a treaty amendment, which we do not believe would ever be passed by the House because of the lack of sovereignty that it would imply.”

Margaret Thatcher

Prime Ministers' Questions (27 April 1989) https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1989/apr/27/engagements#S6CV0151P0_19890427_HOC_126 Third term as Prime Minister

“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

From an interview for Italian television (RAI) (10 March 1986) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106223 Second term as Prime Minister