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Margaret Thatcher Quotes
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Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was a British stateswoman who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to have been appointed. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. As Prime Minister, she implemented policies that have come to be known as Thatcherism.

A research chemist before becoming a barrister, Thatcher was elected Member of Parliament for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his Conservative government. In 1975, Thatcher defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election to become Leader of the Opposition and became the first woman to lead a major political party in the United Kingdom. She became Prime Minister after winning the 1979 general election.

On moving into 10 Downing Street, Thatcher introduced a series of political and economic initiatives intended to reverse high unemployment and Britain's struggles in the wake of the Winter of Discontent and an ongoing recession. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation , flexible labour markets, the privatisation of state-owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions. Thatcher's popularity during her first years in office waned amid recession and increasing unemployment, until victory in the 1982 Falklands War and the recovering economy brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her decisive re-election in 1983. She survived an assassination attempt in 1984.

Thatcher was re-elected for a third term in 1987. During this period her support for a Community Charge was widely unpopular, and her views on the European Community were not shared by others in her Cabinet. She resigned as Prime Minister and party leader in November 1990, after Michael Heseltine launched a challenge to her leadership. After retiring from the Commons in 1992, she was given a life peerage as Baroness Thatcher which entitled her to sit in the House of Lords. In 2013 she died of a stroke in London at the age of 87. Always a controversial figure, she has nonetheless been lauded as one of the greatest, most influential and widest-known politicians in British history, even as arguments over Thatcherism persist.

✵ 13. October 1925 – 8. April 2013   •   Other names Margaret Thatcherová, Margaret Hilda Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher photo
Margaret Thatcher: 348   quotes 74   likes

Margaret Thatcher Quotes

“This is not a confrontation between ‘left’ and ‘right’. I am trying to represent the deep feelings of those many thousands of rank-and-file Tories in the country—and potential Conservative voters, too—who feel let down by our party and find themselves unrepresented in a political vacuum.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech in Finchley (31 January 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102605
Shadow Secretary for Environment

Feeling , Country

“There is not and cannot possibly be any hard and fast antithesis between self-interest and care for others, for man is a social creature, born into family, clan, community, nation, brought up in mutual dependence. The founders of our religion made this a cornerstone of morality. The admonition: love they neighbour as thyself, and do as you would be done by, expresses this. You will note that it does not denigrate self, or elevate love of others above it. On the contrary, it sees concern for self and responsibility for self as something to be expected, and asks only that this be extended to others. This embodies the great truth that self-regard is the root of regard for one's fellows.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Greater London Young Conservatives (Iain Macleod Memorial Lecture - "Dimensions of Conservatism") (4 July 1977) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103411
Leader of the Opposition

Love , Truth , Family , Religion

“Not that this appears to affect the intentions of the political-bureaucratic elite, which in Britain as elsewhere in Europe believes that it has an overriding mission to achieve European integration by hook or by crook and which is convinced that History (with an extra-large 'H') is on its side.”

Margaret Thatcher book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World

Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 388

History , Appearance

“Iraq's invasion of Kuwait defies every principle for which the United Nations stands. If we let it succeed, no small country can ever feel safe again. The law of the jungle would take over from the rule of law.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to the Aspen Institute ("Shaping a New Global Community") (5 August 1990) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108174
Third term as Prime Minister

Law , Feeling , Country

“It is not our policy to suppress success.”

Margaret Thatcher

The Path To Power (1995)

Success

“We all see these great calamities with different eyes, and so their impact upon us is different.”

Margaret Thatcher

The Path To Power (1995)

“What do you think of those two?”

Margaret Thatcher book The Downing Street Years

(She was holding out The Sun newspaper and was referring to 2 editorials on page 2. Page 3 of The Sun is known for having nude women on it.) Quoted in the first episode of the documentary Thatcher: The Downing Street Years.
First term as Prime Minister

Thinking

“Those who want the country to have a strong and sure defence can't rely on the Labour Party, the SDP or the Liberals. They can rely on us. By the end of this century it is predicted that several more countries will have acquired nuclear weapons. Labour wants Britain to give them up. At the very time when any sensible person would be renewing his insurance cover, Labour wants to cancel Britain's policy altogether. Moreover, they want to get rid of American bases from Britain and all nuclear weapons from British soil. Does anyone who has witnessed Mr. Gorbachev's performance thinks that he respects weakness? No. Mr. President, it is recognition of the West's strength and cohesion that has brought the Soviet Union back to the negotiating table. Our wish is to see substantial reductions in nuclear weapons, provided they are balanced and verifiable. I know that will be President Reagan's objective at his meeting with Mr Gorbachev, and he has our full support and good wishes as he goes to Geneva. The West could not have a better or a braver champion.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (11 October 1985) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106145
Second term as Prime Minister

Support , Thinking , Strong , Time

“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

Post-Prime Ministerial

Communication , Country

“I never hugged him, I bombed him.”

Margaret Thatcher

Referring to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, specifically to pictures of Tony Blair embracing him
Related by Conor Burns MP at Young Britons' Foundation Reception, via <i>The Telegraph</i>, 13th March 2011, Richard Eden http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8378222/Libya-Margaret-Thatcher-gives-Colonel-Gaddafis-Labour-friends-a-history-lesson.html
Post-Prime Ministerial

“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

The Path To Power (1995)

“The fact is that the two major nuclear powers have not gone to war against each other—because, I believe, nuclear weapons are achieving their purpose as a deterrent that makes the prospect of war too horrific. It is noteworthy that, since the last world war, there have been 140 conventional wars, fought with ordinary weapons, which are themselves horrific, and that nuclear weapons have been a deterrent to war. I therefore believe that we should keep them.”

Margaret Thatcher

Prime Minister's Questions (15 June 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104968
First term as Prime Minister

War , World

“The trouble with you John, is that your spine does not reach your brain.”

Margaret Thatcher

On Conservative backbencher John Whittingdale after being summoned to her room to urge MPs to vote against the Maastricht Treaty. Whittingdale was reported to have emerged from the room in tears. (The Times 26 November 1992)
Post-Prime Ministerial

“They are all a rotten lot. Schmidt and the Americans and we are the only people who would do any standing up and fighting if necessary.”

Margaret Thatcher

Remark to President of the European Commission Roy Jenkins on her European Community colleagues (22 October 1979), quoted in Roy Jenkins, European Diary, 1977-1981 (London: Collins, 1989), p. 511
First term as Prime Minister

People , Fight

“The economic success of the Western world is a product of its moral philosophy and practice. The economic results are better because the moral philosophy is superior. It is superior because it starts with the individual, with his uniqueness, his responsibility, and his capacity to choose. Surely this is infinitely preferable to the Socialist-statist philosophy which sets up a centralised economic system to which the individual must conform, which subjugates him, directs him and denies him the right to free choice. Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice, there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to the Zurich Economic Society “The New Renaissance” (14 March 1977) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103336
Leader of the Opposition

World , Evil , Success

“The feminists hate me, don't they? And I don’t blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison.”

Margaret Thatcher

As quoted by Paul Johnson in Failure of the Feminists http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/6766663/failure-of-the-feminists/, The Spectator, 12 March, 2011.
Attributed

Hate

“We are not asking for a penny piece of Community money for Britain. What we are asking is for a very large amount of our own money back, over and above what we contribute to the Community, which is covered by our receipts from the Community.”

Margaret Thatcher

Press Conference after Dublin European Council (30 November 1979) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104180 when she was trying to renegotiate Britain's EEC budget contribution at the EEC Summit in Dublin. Often quoted as "I want my money back".
First term as Prime Minister

Money , Communication

“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

" Statue of Margaret Thatcher unveiled at British Parliament http://legacy.utsandiego.com/news/world/20070221-1456-britain-thatcher-statue.html", Associated Press, 21 February 2007.
On the unveiling of a statue of her in the Members' Lobby of the House of Commons. Baroness Thatcher referred to a previous marble statue which was decapitated http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2091200.stm in 2002.
Post-Prime Ministerial

Hope , Time

“They don't patronize me for being a woman. Nobody puts me down.”

Margaret Thatcher

Interview for Daily Express (8 August 1980) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104260 on male heads of state, quoted in Chris Ogden, Maggie: An Intimate Portrait of a Woman in Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), p. 341.
First term as Prime Minister

“I support very much the approaches that the President [Ronald Reagan] is taking. As you know, I am his greatest fan!”

Margaret Thatcher

TV Interview for CBS 60 Minutes (15 February 1985) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105964
Second term as Prime Minister

Support

“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

Answering questions at a general election news conference (4 June 1987) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=106866. 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 insurance.
Second term as Prime Minister

People , Time

“In our United Kingdom, the main terrorist threat has come from the IRA. Their minds twisted by hatred and fanaticism, they have tried to bomb and murder their way to their objective of tearing more than a million citizens out of the United Kingdom. The truth is that the whole IRA campaign is based on crushing democracy and smashing anyone who doesn't agree with them. To all those who have suffered so much at their hands—to the Northern Ireland policemen and prison officers and their families, to the soldiers, the judges, the civil servants and their families—we offer our deepest admiration and thanks for defending democracy and for facing danger while keeping within the rule of law—unlike the terrorist who skulks in the shadows and shoots to kill…we will never give up the search for more effective ways of defeating the IRA. If the IRA think they can weary us or frighten us, they have made a terrible miscalculation. People sometimes say that it is wrong to use the word never in politics, I disagree, some things are of such fundamental importance that no other word is appropriate. So I say once again today that this Government will never surrender to the IRA. Never.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (14 October 1988) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=107352
Third term as Prime Minister

People , Truth , Family , Law

“We shall have to learn again to be one nation, or one day we shall be no nation.”

Margaret Thatcher

Conservative Party television broadcast “Winter of Discontent” (17 January 1979) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103926
Leader of the Opposition

Learning

“For generations, we have assumed that the efforts of mankind would leave the fundamental equilibrium of the world's systems and atmosphere stable. But it is possible that with all these enormous changes (population, agricultural, use of fossil fuels) concentrated into such a short period of time, we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of this planet itself…the increase in the greenhouse gases…has led some to fear that we are creating a global heat trap which could lead to climatic instability.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to the Royal Society (27 September 1988) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107346
Third term as Prime Minister

World , Fear , Effort , Change

“The nation is but an enlarged family.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech at St Lawrence Jewry (4 March 1981) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104587.
First term as Prime Minister

Family

“I wish I could say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had done himself less than justice. Unfortunately, I can only say that I believe he has done himself justice. Some Chancellors are macro-economic. Other Chancellors are fiscal. This one is just plain cheap.”

Margaret Thatcher

On Denis Healey, in a remark in the House of Commons (22 January 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=102591
Shadow Secretary for Environment

Justice

“The only way to do the best you can is to work as hard as you can.”

Margaret Thatcher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL5walAO3KI&feature=youtu.be&t=15m
Leader of the Opposition

Way

“I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together.”

Margaret Thatcher

TV Interview for BBC (17 December 1984) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=105592
Second term as Prime Minister

Business

“You only have to wade through a metric measure or two of European prose, culled from its directives, circulars, reports, communiqués or what pass as debates in its 'parliament', and you will quickly understand that Europe is, in truth, synonymous with bureaucracy – to which one might add 'to', 'from' and 'with' bureaucracy if one were so minded.”

Margaret Thatcher book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World

Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 324

Truth , Understanding

“People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture…So, if you want good race relations, you have got to allay peoples' fears on numbers…we do have to hold out the prospect of an end to immigration except, of course, for compassionate cases…We are not in politics to ignore peoples' worries: we are in politics to deal with them.”

Margaret Thatcher

TV Interview for Granada World in Action (27 January 1978) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=103485
Leader of the Opposition

People , Fear , Country

“We're leaving Downing Street for the last time after eleven-and-a-half wonderful years, and we're very happy that we leave the United Kingdom in a very, very much better state than when we came here eleven and a half years ago.”

Margaret Thatcher

Remarks departing Downing Street (28 November 1990) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108258
Third term as Prime Minister

Time , Happiness

“I think male Prime Ministers one day will come back into fashion!”

Margaret Thatcher

TV Interview for TV-AM (30 December 1988) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107022
Third term as Prime Minister

Fashion , Thinking

“The significance of the Falklands War was enormous, both for Britain's self-confidence and for our standing in the world…We had come to be seen by both friends and enemies as a nation which lacked the will and the capability to defend its interests in peace, let alone in war. Victory in the Falklands changed that. Everywhere I went after the war, Britain's name meant something more than it had. The war also had real importance in relations between East and West: years later I was told by a Russian general that the Soviets had been firmly convinced that we would not fight for the Falklands, and that if we did fight we would lose. We proved them wrong on both counts, and they did not forget the fact.”

Margaret Thatcher book The Downing Street Years

The Downing Street Years (1993)

War , World , Peace , Confidence

“It is a great night. It is the end of Socialism.”

Margaret Thatcher

On hearing the results of the 1992 general election (9 April 1992), as reported in The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt: Volume Two (2000) by Woodrow Wyatt.
Post-Prime Ministerial

Night

“Douglas, Douglas, you would make Neville Chamberlain look like a warmonger.”

Margaret Thatcher

On Douglas Hurd, as quoted in "Atticus", The Sunday Times (2 May 1993)
Post-Prime Ministerial

“North Korea desperately needed the foreign currency which this lethal trade could bring; its role as chief 'rogue' reinforced its prestige among anti-Western states, near and far; and it could also hope at the right moment to extort new instalments of Danegeld from America and her allies.”

Margaret Thatcher book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World

Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 212

Hope

“I proclaim with confidence that Britain can get right back into the world competitive race if only we can break free of the collective chains which hold us back. Unlike the socialists, who trust the state, we trust the people. That is why we are the party of freedom.”

Margaret Thatcher

Article for the News of the World (29 April 1979) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104052
Leader of the Opposition

People , World , Confidence , Freedom

“We are fighting a major internal war against terrorism in Northern Ireland, and need more troops in order to win it.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech at Kensington Town Hall ("Britain Awake") (19 January 1976) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=102939
Leader of the Opposition

War , Fight

“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

Interview for Daily Express (19 February 1986) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106219
Second term as Prime Minister

People , Personality

“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. Mr. President, it was never really lost.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (8 October 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105032
First term as Prime Minister

World , Spring

“All too often the ills of this country are passed off as those of society. Similarly, when action is required, society is called upon to act. But society as such does not exist except as a concept. Society is made up of people. It is people who have duties and beliefs and resolve. It is people who get things done. She prefers to think in terms of the acts of individuals and families as the real sinews of society rather than of society as an abstract concept. Her approach to society reflects her fundamental belief in personal responsibility and choice. To leave things to ‘society’ is to run away from the real decisions, practical responsibility and effective action.”

Margaret Thatcher

Interview 23 September 1987, as quoted in by Douglas Keay, Woman's Own, 31 October 1987, pp. 8–10. A transcript of the interview http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=106689 at the Margaret Thatcher Foundation website differs in several particulars, but not in substance. The magazine transposed the statement in bold, often quoted out of context, from a later portion of Thatcher's remarks:
Third term as Prime Minister

People , Family , Thinking , Decision

“It has been my strategy, believing passionately as I do in what we stand for, to take a different direction, to make people see that was the better direction; for us to stay in power long enough to make the Labour Party realise that their policies will never be re-elected and they must do a fundamental reappraisal of their policies and start two generations later what Gaitskell wanted to do but failed…I myself do not think one more push will be quite enough…I think you are likely to have it much more up nearer towards the year 2000, then you will have the fundamental realignment that should have been brought about half a century before.”

Margaret Thatcher

Interview for The Standard (13 March 1987) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106595
Second term as Prime Minister

People , Thinking , Passion

“All corporatism – even when practised 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.”

Margaret Thatcher book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World

Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 121

Error

“It is always important in matters of high politics to know what you do not know. Those who think they know, but are mistaken, and act upon their mistakes, are the most dangerous people to have in charge.”

Margaret Thatcher book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World

Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 104

People , Thinking

“If my critics saw me walking over the River Thames they would say it was because I couldn't swim.”

Margaret Thatcher

Attributed to her in http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/3637706/Quite-Interesting.html and other sources. Actually an adapted Lyndon Johnson quote "If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: 'President Can't Swim.'"
Misattributed

“No-one in their senses wants nuclear weapons for their own sake, but equally, no responsible prime minister could take the colossal gamble of giving up our nuclear defences while our greatest potential enemy kept their's. Policies which would throw out all American nuclear bases…would wreck NATO and leave us totally isolated from our friends in the United States, and friends they are. No nation in history has ever shouldered a greater burden nor shouldered it more willingly nor more generously than the United States. This Party is pro-American. And we must constantly remind people what the defence policy of the [Labour] Party would mean. Their idea that by giving up our nuclear deterrent, we could somehow escape the result of a nuclear war elsewhere is nonsense, and it is a delusion to assume that conventional weapons are sufficient defence against nuclear attack. And do not let anyone slip into the habit of thinking that conventional war in Europe is some kind of comfortable option. With a huge array of modern weapons held by the Soviet Union, including chemical weapons in large quantities, it would be a cruel and terrible conflict. The truth is that possession of the nuclear deterrent has prevented not only nuclear war but also conventional war and to us, peace is precious beyond price. We are the true peace party.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (12 October 1984) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105763
Second term as Prime Minister

War , People , Truth , Peace

“It was not a Government that built up the skill and craft of this country…It was private individuals who patiently persevered, building up their businesses bit by bit…Their success provided employment for others and greatly benefited the community as a whole. This was the spirit that made England great and can restore her once again. Do you want it to perish for a soul-less Socialist system, or to live to recreate a glorious Britain?”

Margaret Thatcher

Article for Gravesend and Dartford Reporter (28 January 1950) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/100856
1950s

Soul , Communication , Business , Success

“Singapore's success shows us that:”

Margaret Thatcher book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World

A country's wealth need not depend on natural resources, it may even ultimately benefit from their absence
The greatest resource of all is Man
What government has to do is to set the framework for human talent to flourish.
Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 118

Success

“In the desperate situation of Britain today, our party needs the support of all who value the traditional ideals of Toryism: compassion, and concern for the individual and his freedom; opposition to excessive State power; the right of the enterprising, the hard-working and the thrifty to succeed and to reap the rewards of success and pass some of them on to their children; encouragement of that infinite diversity of choice that is an essential of freedom; the defence of widely-distributed private property against the Socialist State; the right of a man to work without oppression by either employer or trade union boss. There is a widespread feeling in the country that the Conservative party has not defended these ideals explicitly and toughly enough, so that Britain is set on a course towards inevitable Socialist mediocrity. That course must not only be halted, it must be reversed.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech in Finchley (31 January 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102605
Shadow Secretary for Environment

Children , Feeling , Support , Freedom

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

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (14 October 1988) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=107352
Third term as Prime Minister
Variant: A man may climb Everest for himself, but at the summit he plants his country's flag.

Country