Margaret Thatcher quotes

“A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“Of course it's the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“If you want to cut your own throat, don't come to me for a bandage.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“It pays to know the enemy - not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“I just owe almost everything to my father and it's passionately interesting for me that the things that I learned in a small town, in a very modest home, are just the things that I believe have won the election.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“I owe nothing to Women's Lib.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“The spirit of envy can destroy; it can never build.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“Being prime minister is a lonely job... you cannot lead from the crowd.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“What Britain needs is an iron lady.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“There are still people in my party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors... I mean it.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“One of the things being in politics has taught me is that men are not a reasoned or reasonable sex.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“You don't tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“People think that at the top there isn't much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“It's a funny old world.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“This lady is not for turning.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“I don't mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“The battle for women's rights has been largely won.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“You and I come by road or rail, but economists travel on infrastructure.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“We were told our campaign wasn't sufficiently slick. We regard that as a compliment.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“Platitudes? Yes, there are platitudes. Platitudes are there because they are true.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“I like Mr. Gorbachev, we can do business together.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“We Conservatives hate unemployment.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“It's passionately interesting for me that the things that I learned in a small town, in a very modest home, are just the things that I believe have won the election.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“Ought we not to ask the media to agree among themselves a voluntary code of conduct, under which they would not say or show anything which could assist the terrorists' morale or their cause while the hijack lasted.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“Every family should have the right to spend their money, after tax, as they wish, and not as the government dictates. Let us extend choice, extend the will to choose and the chance to choose.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“If... many influential people have failed to understand, or have just forgotten, what we were up against in the Cold War and how we overcame it, they are not going to be capable of securing, let alone enlarging, the gains that liberty has made.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“No woman in my time will be prime minister or chancellor or foreign secretary - not the top jobs. Anyway, I wouldn't want to be prime minister; you have to give yourself 100 percent.”

— Margaret Thatcher