Margaret Thatcher: Doing

Margaret Thatcher was British stateswoman and politician. Explore interesting quotes on doing.

Margaret Thatcher: 696 quotes74 likes

“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

Post-Prime Ministerial

“I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand "I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!" or "I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!" "I am homeless, the Government must house me!" and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations.”

Margaret Thatcher

Third term as Prime Minister

“The people of the Falkland Islands, like the people of the United Kingdom, are an island race. Their way of life is British; their allegiance is to the Crown. They are few in number, but they have the right to live in peace, to choose their own way of life and to determine their own allegiance. Their way of life is British; their allegiance is to the Crown. It is the wish of the British people and the duty of Her Majesty's Government to do everything that we can to uphold that right. That will be our hope and our endeavour and, I believe, the resolve of every Member of the House.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech in the House of Commons (3 April 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104910 First term as Prime Minister

“The…philosophical reason for which we are against nationalisation and for private enterprise is because we believe that economic progress comes from the inventiveness, ability, determination and the pioneering spirit of extraordinary men and women. If they cannot exercise that spirit here, they will go away to another free enterprise country which will then make more economic progress than we do. We ought, in fact, to be encouraging small firms and small companies, because the extent to which innovation comes through these companies is tremendous.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (20 October 1967) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/101586 Backbench MP

“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

TV Interview for Channel 4 A Week in Politics (1 February 1985) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105955 Second term as Prime Minister

“[Thatcher] began by asking what benefits ordinary people had received after 3½ years of Socialism. The Government should do what any good housewife would do if money was short—look at their accounts and see what was wrong.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech at her adoption meeting as Conservative candidate for Dartford (28 February 1949) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/100821 1940s

“I hate extremes of any kind. Communism and the National Front both seek the domination of the state over the individual. They both, I believe crush the right of the individual. To me, therefore, they are parties of a similar kind. All my life I have stood against banning Communism or other extremist organisations because, if you do that, they go underground and it gives them an excitement that they don't get if they are allowed to pursue their policies openly. We'll beat them into the ground on argument… The National Front is a Socialist Front.”

Margaret Thatcher

Interview for Hornsey Journal (21 April 1978) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=103662 Leader of the Opposition

“The [Labour] moderates split off and that split of the moderates delayed the realignment of British politics for at least one generation and possibly two, because as a conservative passionately believing in freedom under the law and believing that socialism cannot stand for that, the realignment - you hear me say my job is to stay in long enough so that everyone knows that socialism and the British character do not mix, so socialism has got to go - is to get the fundamental realignment which I think is in keeping with the British character, which is two parties, a free enterprise party, because if you have political freedom under the rule of law you have got to have economic freedom as well. It is to bring about that can only be done really by eventually the Labour Party splitting off the Left and rejecting the Clause 4 and the command economy, and then we really should get a realignment.”

Margaret Thatcher

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

“In considering our traditional ties with the Commonwealth we should remember that it now differs greatly from the entity which existed 20 or 30 years ago. Many of us do not feel quite the same allegiance to Archbishop Makarios or Doctor Nkrumah or to people like Jomo Kenyatta as we do towards Mr. Menzies of Australia.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Finchley Conservatives (14 August 1961) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=101105 Backbench MP

“The whole history of negotiation with the Soviet Union teaches us that if you do something they want without insisting on something in return, the Soviets do not regard it as a kindness to be reciprocated, but as a weakness to be exploited. There is a lot of fashionable nonsense talked about how we misunderstand Communism, misrepresent Communism, see Communists under every bed. An attempt is being made, it seems, to create an atmosphere where truth and commonsense on these matters is actively discouraged. I believe the people of this country understand better the truth of the matter than those who try to mislead them. We must work for a real relaxation of tension, but in our negotiations with the Eastern bloc we must not accept words or gestures as a substitute for genuine detente. No flood of words emanating from a summit conference will mean anything unless it is accompanied by some positive action by which the Soviet leaders show that their ingrained attitudes are really beginning to change.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Chelsea Conservative Association (26 July 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102750 Leader of the Opposition

“I have thought long and deeply about the post of Foreign Secretary and have decided to offer it to Peter Carrington who – as I am sure you will agree – will do the job superbly.”

Margaret Thatcher

Letter to Edward Heath (4 May 1979), who had been hoping for the job of Foreign Secretary in Thatcher's government, quoted in Edward Heath, The Course of My Life (Hodder and Stoughton, 1998), p. 574
First term as Prime Minister

“We do not want a united Germany. This would lead to a change to postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security.”

Margaret Thatcher

Talking to Mikhail Gorbachev at a luncheon meeting in Moscow in September 1989 https://web.archive.org/web/20170524105058/http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/How-Margaret-Thatcher-pleaded-with-Gorbachev-not-to-let-the-Berlin-Wall-fall-out-of-london/article16514846.ece Third term as Prime Minister

“I do not believe that history is writ clear and unchallengeable. It doesn't just happen. History is made by people: its movement depends on small currents as well as great tides, on ideas, perceptions, will and courage, the ability to sense a trend, the will to act on understanding and intuition. It is up to us to give intellectual content and political direction to these new dissatisfactions with socialism in practice, with its material and moral failures, we must convert disillusion into understanding. If we fail, the tide will be lost. But if it is taken, the last quarter of our century can initiate a new renaissance matching anything in our island's long and outstanding history.”

Margaret Thatcher

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

“Iraq has violated and taken over the territory of a country which is a full member of the United Nations. That is totally unacceptable and if it were allowed to endure then there would be many other small countries that could never feel safe…The fundamental question is this: whether the nations of the world have the collective will effectively to see that Security Council Resolution is upheld, whether they have the collective will effectively to do anything which the Security Council further agrees to see that Iraq withdraws and that the government of Kuwait is restored to Kuwait.”

Margaret Thatcher

Joint Press Conference with President Bush (2 August 1990) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108170 Third term as Prime Minister

“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

Prime Minister's Questions (1 February 1983) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105246 First term as Prime Minister

“The restoration of the confidence of a great nation is a massive task. We do not shrink from it. It will not be given to this generation of our countrymen to create a great Empire. But it is given to us to demand an end to decline and to make a stand against what Churchill described as the “long dismal drawling tides of drift and surrender, of wrong measurements and feeble impulses”. Though less powerful than once we were, we have friends in every quarter of the globe, who will rejoice at our recovery, welcome the revival of our influence, and benefit from the message and from the example of our renewal.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to the Conservative Political Centre Summer School ("The Renewal of Britain") (6 July 1979) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104107 First term as Prime Minister

“Difficult days lie ahead, but Britain will face them in the conviction that our cause is just and in the knowledge that we have been doing everything reasonable to secure a negotiated settlement. The principles that we are defending are fundamental to everything that this Parliament and this country stand for. They are the principles of democracy and the rule of law…Britain has a responsibility towards the islanders to restore their democratic way of life. She has a duty to the whole world to show that aggression will not succeed and to uphold the cause of freedom.”

Margaret Thatcher

Speech in the House of Commons (20 May 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104943 First term as Prime Minister

“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

Speech to Small Business Bureau Conference (8 February 1984) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=105617 Second term as Prime Minister

“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

“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