“Europe' in anything other than the geographical sense is a wholly artificial construct. It makes no sense at all to lump together Beethoven and Debussy, Voltaire and Burke, Vermeer and Picasso, Notre Dame and St Paul's, boiled beef and bouillabaisse, and portray them as elements of a 'European' musical, philosophical, artistic, architectural or gastronomic reality. If Europe charms us, as it has so often charmed me, it is precisely because of its contrasts and contradictions, not its coherence and continuity.”

—  Margaret Thatcher , book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World

Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 328

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Margaret Thatcher 348
British stateswoman and politician 1925–2013

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