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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

“Everyone had something unique to offer in life and their responsibility was to develop those gifts - and heroes come from all backgrounds.”

Margaret Thatcher

The Path To Power (1995)

Life

“The freedom of peoples depends fundamentally on the rule of law, a fair legal system. The place to have trials or accusations is a court of law, the Common Law that has come right up from Magna Carta, which has come right up through the British courts – a court of law is the place where you deal with these matters. If you ever get trial by television or guilt by accusation, that day freedom dies because you have not had it done with all of the careful rules that have developed in a court of law. Press and television rely on freedom. Those who rely on freedom must uphold the rule of law and have a duty and a responsibility to do so and not try to substitute their own system for it.”

Margaret Thatcher

Criticising the Thames Television programme "Death on the Rock", in an interview with Hatsuhisa Takashima of NHK Japanese television (29 April 1988) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=107058
Third term as Prime Minister

People , Law , Freedom , Dependency

“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

Quoted from Margaret Thatcher, Article for Newsweek “Don’t undo my work” (27 April 1992).
Post-Prime Ministerial

People , World , Freedom , Country

“Nazism (national Socialism) and communism (international socialism) were but two sides of the same coin.”

Margaret Thatcher

The Path To Power (1995)

Communication

“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

The Path To Power (1995)

“May I make one point absolutely clear; the time we went there was a hunger strike on in the Maze, no-one has asked me, no-one in official authority or in high places has ever asked me to give political status to people who've been convicted of terrible crimes like murder, wounding, maming, causing explosions. That used to be asked. I think one of the reasons why we're not asked now is because we have got over our viewpoint and because everyone knows that this government will not budge on things which it regards as vital. There is no such thing as political murder. There is murder. There is no such things as causing explosions for political purposes and risking the lives of innocent men women and children. It is causing explosion, it is a crime, and they know that neither I, nor any member of my government will be moved on this. And we won through on that. And everyone knows it.”

Margaret Thatcher

Radio Interview for BBC Radio 4 The World this Weekend (4 January 1981) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104477
First term as Prime Minister

Women , Men , Hunger , Children

“If we do not keep alive the flame of freedom that flame will go out, and every noble ideal will die with it. It is not by force of weapons but by force of ideas that we seek to spread liberty to the world' s oppressed. It is not only ideals, but conscience that impels us to do so. Is there conscience in the Kremlin? Do they ever ask themselves what is the purpose of life? What is it all for? Does the way they handled the Korean airliner atrocity suggest that they ever considered such questions? No. Their creed is barren of conscience, immune to the promptings of good and evil. To them it is the system that counts, and all men must conform.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech at the Winston Churchill Foundation Award dinner (29 September 1983) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105450
Second term as Prime Minister

Life , Men , World , Way

“When people are free to choose, they choose freedom.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to the Industrial League of Orange County (14 March 1991) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108266
Post-Prime Ministerial

People , Freedom

“The greatest division this nation has ever seen were the conflicts of trade unions towards the end of a Labour Government…That trade union movement…used their power against their members. They made them come out on strike when they didn't want to. They loved secondary picketing. They went and demonstrated outside companies where there was no dispute whatsoever, and sometimes closed them down. They were acting as they were later in the coal strike, before my whole trade union laws were through of this Government. They were out to use their power to hold the nation to ransom, to stop power from getting to the whole of manufacturing industry to damage people's jobs, to stop power from getting to every house in the country, power, heat and light to every housewife, every child, every school, every pensioner. You want division; you want conflict; you want hatred. There it was. It was that which Thatcherism—if you call it that—tried to stop. Not by arrogance, but by giving power to the ordinary, decent, honourable, trade union member who didn’t want to go on strike. By giving power to him over the Scargills of this world.”

Margaret Thatcher

TV Interview for BBC1 Panorama (8 June 1987) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106647
Second term as Prime Minister

Love , People , World , School

“Our sovereignty does not come from Brussels—it is ours by right and by heritage.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech in the House of Commons (26 June 1991) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108276
Post-Prime Ministerial

“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

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)
Post-Prime Ministerial

Parting

“1989 will be remembered for decades to come as the year when half the people of half our continent began to throw off their chains. The messages on our banners in 1979—freedom, opportunity, family, enterprise, ownership—are now inscribed on the banners in Leipzig, Warsaw, Budapest and even Moscow…In 1979, we knew that we were starting a British revolution; in fact, we were the pioneers of a world revolution.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (13 October 1989) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107789
Third term as Prime Minister

People , World , Family , Freedom

“Communism never sleeps, never changes its objectives, nor must we. Our first duty to freedom is to defend our own. Then one day we might export a little to those peoples who have to live without it. Let no one be under any misunderstanding about the inflexible resolve of Her Majesty's Government to strengthen our defences and to play our full part in the defence of a free Europe.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech at "Youth for Europe" Rally (2 June 1979) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104088
First term as Prime Minister

People , Communication , Sleep , Freedom

“It may be inverted snobbishness but I don't want old style, Old Etonian Tories of the old school to succeed me and go back to the old complacent, consensus ways. John Major is someone who has fought his way up from the bottom and is far more in tune with the skilled and ambitious and worthwhile working classes than Douglas Hurd is.”

Margaret Thatcher

Said to Woodrow Wyatt (23 November 1990), Sarah Curtis (ed.), The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt. Volume Two (Pan, 2000), pp. 401-402.
Third term as Prime Minister

School , Way

“We now know that bin Laden's terrorists had been planning their outrages for years. The propagation of their mad, bad ideology – decency forbids calling it a religion – had been taking place before our eyes. We were just too blind to see it. In short, the world had never ceased to be dangerous. But the West had ceased to be vigilant. Surely that is the most important lesson of this tragedy, and we must learn it if our civilisation is to survive.”

Margaret Thatcher book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World

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

World , Religion , Learning , Madness

“For every idealistic peacemaker willing to renounce his self-defence in favour of a weapons-free world, there is at least one warmaker anxious to exploit the other's good intentions.”

Margaret Thatcher book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World

Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 50

World

“Pennies don't fall from heaven, they have to be earned here on earth.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech at Lord Mayor's Banquet (12 November 1979) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=104167
First term as Prime Minister

“Successful entrepreneurship is ultimately a matter of flair. But there is also a fund of practical knowledge to be acquired and, of course, the right legal and financial framework has to be provided for productive enterprise to develop.”

Margaret Thatcher book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World

Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 65

Knowledge , Success

“The interviewer Stina Dabrowski said to Thatcher: "So when people criticise you and say what it led to the period when you were prime minister was that the rich became richer and the poor and the became poorer." Thatcher replied "That is not correct. The poor also became less poor, because the benefits at the bottom for those who are genuinely poor do go up. Money spend on education goes up and on the Health Service goes up so that is not true. What happens you might get a bigger gap but you might start here creates a small gap particularly if you're paying top tax today - 83% on earnings and income and 98% on savings. Your gap goes up, it does go up, but the whole thing moves up the gap, you must give people incentive!”

Margaret Thatcher

Quoted from an interview with Stina Dabrowski. Margaret Thatcher on rising to power, and resigning from it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_gnhy7eT1s (1995)
Post-Prime Ministerial

Money , People , Health , Education

“A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.”

Margaret Thatcher

Attributed to her in Commons debates, 2003-07-02, column 407 http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030702/debtext/30702-10.htm and Commons debates, 2004-06-15 column 697 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmhansrd/vo040615/debtext/40615-20.htm#40615-20_spnew1. According to a letter http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/11/02/nosplit/dt0201.xml&site=15&page=0 to the Daily Telegraph by Alistair Cooke on 2 November 2006, this sentiment originated with Loelia Ponsonby, one of the wives of 2nd Duke of Westminster who said "Anybody seen in a bus over the age of 30 has been a failure in life". In a letter http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/3633852/Letters-to-the-Daily-Telegraph.html published the next day, also in the Daily Telegraph, Hugo Vickers claims Loelia Ponsonby admitted to him that she had borrowed it from Brian Howard. There is no solid evidence that Margaret Thatcher ever quoted this statement with approval, or indeed shared the sentiment.
Misattributed

Age , Failure

“Communism was the regime for the privileged elite, capitalism the creed for the common man.”

Margaret Thatcher

The Path To Power (1995)

Communication

“My job is to stop Britain from going red.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Institute of Public Relations (2 November 1977) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103192
Leader of the Opposition

“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

Interview for Business Week Magazine (11 February 1985) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105836.
Second term as Prime Minister

World , Way , Confidence , Thinking

“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

Speech to Scottish Tories in 1999 http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Did+they+REALLY+say+that%3F+AS+A+SHORTLIST+IS+COMPILED+OF+THE+YEAR%27S...-a0109790331
Post-Prime Ministerial

World , Problem

“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

Speech to 1922 Committee (19 July 1984) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105563, quoted in John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher. The Iron Lady (London: Jonathan Cape, 2003), p. 361.
Second term as Prime Minister

Fight

“People on all levels of income are better off than they were in 1979. The hon. Gentleman is saying that he would rather that the poor were poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. That way one will never create the wealth for better social services. as we have. What a policy. Yes, he would rather have the poor poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. That is the Liberal policy.”

Margaret Thatcher

From her last House of Commons speech (22 November 1990) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108256; response to M.P. Simon Hughes
Third term as Prime Minister

People , Way , Wealth

“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

Speech to Finchley Conservatives (20 October 1984) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105769 on the Brighton bombing
Second term as Prime Minister

People , Justice , Democracy , Birth

“To many of us it seems that there is precious little difference between the policies of the Communist Party and the policies of the Labour Party.”

Margaret Thatcher

Prime Minister's Questions (11 December 1980) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104460
First term as Prime Minister

“I fight on, I fight to win.”

Margaret Thatcher

Remarks to journalists in Downing Street (21 November 1990) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=108252, following the inconclusive first ballot in the Conservative leadership election.
Third term as Prime Minister

Fight

“Those who use this countries great tradition of freedom of speech should not seek to deny that same freedom to others, especially to those who, like Mr Powell, spent their war years in distinguished service in the Forces.”

Margaret Thatcher

The Path To Power (1995)

War , Freedom , Country

“Remember, George, this is no time to go wobbly.”

Margaret Thatcher

To President George H.W. Bush, regarding the Persian Gulf conflict, as reported in an AP story http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19910308&slug=1270460 published March 8,1991
Former Vice President Dick Cheney : It’s an old wive’s story.
Fox News interview (April 8, 2013) http://video.foxnews.com/v/2287344111001/dick-cheney-pays-tribute-to-margaret-thatcher/ with Greta Van Susteren that focused on his recollections of Prime Minister Thatcher
PolitiFact.com http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/apr/10/dick-cheney/dick-cheney-margaret-thatcher-go-wobbly/, after a fairly extensive review of available source material, concluded, We rate Cheney’s claim False.
Disputed

Time

“I do not believe that people who go on strike in this country have a legitimate cause. Throughout the period of the Labour Government and this one, I have never supported any strikes in this country.”

Margaret Thatcher

Prime Minister's Questions (22 June 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104972
First term as Prime Minister

People , Support , Country

“Last week, Mr President, I seemed to hear a strange sound emanating from Blackpool. And I thought at first it was seagulls. [laughter] Then I remembered that Labour was holding its annual Conference there. And I realised it wasn't seagulls, it was chickens—[laughter and applause] chickens being counted before they were hatched—[laughter and applause] except for Labour's call to enter the ERM and cut interest rates. That was a case of counting chickens after they'd flown the coop. Then, I heard voices getting all worked up about someone they kept calling the “Prime Minister in Waiting”. [laughter] It occurs to me, Mr President, that he might have quite a wait. [applause] I can see him now, like the people queuing up for the Winter sales. All got up with his camp bed, hot thermos, woolly balaclava, CND badge… [laughter and applause] Waiting, waiting, waiting… And then when the doors open, in he rushes—only to find that, as always, there's “that woman” ahead of him again. [applause and laughter] I gather there may be an adjective between “that” and “woman” [laughter] only no-one will tell me what it is. [laughter and applause]”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (12 October 1990) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108217
Third term as Prime Minister

People , Laughter , Winter , Waiting

“I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air—the rather nauseating stench of appeasement.”

Margaret Thatcher

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108234 On a parliament debate about the Gulf War
Third term as Prime Minister

“Member for Islwyn was going to have a single currency willy-nilly. He has already made up his mind. The argument that he uses is that, if others have it, we must. That is an argument for a flock of sheep, not for people who are sent here to analyse the problem and to use our minds and our reason to say which course we should follow.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech in the House of Commons (20 November 1991) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108291
Post-Prime Ministerial

People , Problem

“I don't know by whom we might be threatened. What I do know is a government [sic] we have to be prepared for any eventuality, and I do know that possessions of those nuclear weapons has kept the peace between nuclear powers far better than the possession of conventional weapons did. You know when we only had conventional weapons Europe was at war again with 21–22 years. We have had 38 years peace and in another four or five years we will have the longest period of peace in Europe for centuries. That, to me, is the greatest prize of all, and…I'm prepared to allocate that expenditure to keep peace for the people for whom I'm responsible.”

Margaret Thatcher

TV Interview for Granada TV (1 June 1983) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105096
First term as Prime Minister

War , People , Peace

“The President of the Commission, M. Delors, said at a press conference the other day that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the Community, he wanted the Commission to be the Executive and he wanted the Council of Ministers to be the Senate. No. No. No.”

Margaret Thatcher

Debate in the House of Commons (30 October 1990) http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm198990/cmhansrd/1990-10-30/Debate-1.html
Third term as Prime Minister

Communication

“If they do not wish to confer the honour, I am the last person who would wish to receive it.”

Margaret Thatcher

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.
Second term as Prime Minister

Personality

“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

Keith Joseph Memorial Lecture (11 January 1996) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=108353
Post-Prime Ministerial

Family , Confidence , Fashion , Business

“Paddy Ashdown: …this is an agreement which the right hon. Lady will be entitled to regard with a certain pride and satisfaction as she looks back on the twilight days of her premiership…”

Margaret Thatcher

Third term as Prime Minister

“The battle of the Falklands was a remarkable military operation, boldly planned, bravely executed, and brilliantly accomplished. We owe an enormous debt to the British forces and to the Merchant Marine. We honour them all. They have been supported by a people united in defence of our way of life and of our sovereign territory.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech in the House of Commons (15 June 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104969
First term as Prime Minister

Life , People , Way , Support

“I am a great admirer of Professor Hayek. Some of his books are absolutely supreme—“The Constitution of Liberty” and the three volumes on “Law, Legislation and Liberty”—and would be well read by almost every hon. Member.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech in the House of Commons (10 March 1981) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104593
First term as Prime Minister

Books , Law , Reading

“[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

After UK Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd claimed lifting the arms embargo to Bosnians would create a "level killing field", as reported in 'Thatcher says massacre brings shame on west' by Philip Webster and Robert Morgan in The Times (14 April 1993)
Post-Prime Ministerial

Heart

“We have brought three words—freedom, choice, opportunity—into the centre of the political debate. And we have exposed the language of Socialism, the gloss they put on words to conceal their true meaning. For instance, Socialists say “publicly owned”. What they mean is “State controlled”. Socialists say “Government aid”. What they mean is “taxpayers' aid”. Socialists say “social justice”. What they mean is “selective justice”. Socialists say “equality.” What they mean is “levelling down”. Why do they twist the truth like this? Because they dare not spell out the Socialist reality. One way to destroy capitalism, said Lenin, was to devalue its currency. Another way is to debase its language. Whenever we can, let us, like Luther, nail the truth to the door—and let us do it in unambiguous English. These are the opening rounds in the battle of ideas. It is a battle that we are winning.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Conservative Central Council ("The Historic Choice") (20 March 1976) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102990
Leader of the Opposition

Truth , Justice , Way , Idea

“It is traditional conservatism…It is radical, because at the time when I took over we needed to be radical. I would not call it populist. I may say many of the things that I have said strike a chord in the hearts of ordinary people. Why? Because they are British. Because their character is independent. They do not like to be shoved around. Because they are prepared to take responsibility. Because they do expect to be loyal to their friends and loyal allies. You call it populist. I say it strikes a chord in the hearts of people. I know, because it struck a chord in my heart many many years ago.”

Margaret Thatcher

Radio Interview for BBC Radio 3 (17 December 1985) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105934
Second term as Prime Minister

People , Time , Heart

“Socialists then shift the ground for taking industries into “public ownership”. They then tell us that some industries cannot survive any longer unless they are taken into public ownership, allegedly to protect the public from the effects of their collapse. It all sounds so cosy, and so democratic. But is it true? No, of course it isn't. The moment ownership passes into the name of the public is the moment the public ceases to have any ownership or accountability, and often the moment when it ceases to get what it wants. But it is invariably the moment when the public starts to pay. Pays to take the industry over. Pays the losses by higher taxes. Pays for inefficiencies in higher prices.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Finchley Conservatives (31 January 1976) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102947
Leader of the Opposition

Loss

“Today we are coming to realise that an epoch in history is over…For more than forty years that Iron Curtain remained in place. Few of us expected to see it lifted in our life-time. Yet with great suddenness the impossible has happened. Communism is broken, utterly broken…We do not see this new Soviet Union as an enemy, but as a country groping its way towards freedom. We no longer have to view the world through a prism of East-West relations. The Cold War is over.”

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

Life , War , World , Way

“It is generally acknowledged that the Government are running, in the Maze prison, one of the most liberal and humane prison regimes anywhere…What hunger strikers are asking for—the one who died last was in fact a murderer; let us not mince our words—is political status by easy stages. They cannot have it. They are murderers and people who use force and violence to obtain their ends. They have made perfectly clear what they want. They cannot and will not have it.”

Margaret Thatcher

Prime Minister's Questions (4 May 1981) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104649 regarding the 1981 Irish hunger strike.
First term as Prime Minister

Hunger , People

“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

Interview for Director magazine (4 July 1983) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105182, quoted in Chris Ogden, Maggie: An Intimate Portrait of a Woman in Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), p. 345.
Second term as Prime Minister

Education , Business

“I can't bear Britain in decline. I just can't.”

Margaret Thatcher

Interviewed http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103864 by Michael Cockerell for BBC TV's Campaign '79 (27 April 1979).
Leader of the Opposition