Margaret Thatcher Quotes

262 Sourced Quotes

Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.

Margaret Thatcher
I don't think there will be a woman Prime Minister in my lifetime.

Margaret Thatcher
We need our reason to teach us today that we are not, that we must not try to be, the lords of all we survey. We are not the lords, we are the Lord's creatures, the trustees of this planet, charged today with preserving life itself - preserving life with all its mystery and all its wonder.

Margaret Thatcher
They [Federalist European Politicians] divide their time between court room, prison and debating chamber - giving a whole new meaning to the term 'conviction politician'.

Margaret Thatcher
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
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
Under a Labour government, there's virtually nowhere you can put your savings where they would be safe from the state.... If you put money in a sock they'd probably nationalize socks.

Margaret Thatcher
Some Socialists seem to believe that people should be numbers in a State computer. We believe they should be individuals. We are all unequal. No one, thank heavens, is like anyone else, however much the Socialists may pretend otherwise. We believe that everyone has the right to be unequal but to us every human being is equally important.

Margaret Thatcher
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
We must have an ideology. The other side have got an ideology they can test their policies against. We must have one as well.

Margaret Thatcher
Freedom under the law must never be taken for granted.

Margaret Thatcher
Naturally, it is with some temerity that the pupil speaks before the master, because you know more about the Common Market than anybody.

Margaret Thatcher
If a Tory does not believe that private property is one of the main bulwarks of individual freedom, then he had better become a socialist and have done with it.

Margaret Thatcher
When you hold back the successful, you penalize those who need help.

Margaret Thatcher
What happened in Russia in 1917 wasn't a revolution - it was a coup d'etat.

Margaret Thatcher
Their pitiless ideology only survives because it is maintained by force. But the day comes when the anger and frustration of the people is so great that force cannot contain it. Then the edifice cracks: the mortar crumbles.

Margaret Thatcher
It is sometimes said that because of our past we, as a people, expect too much and set our sights too high. That is not the way I see it. Rather it seems to me that throughout my life in politics our ambitions have steadily shrunk. Our response to disappointment has not been to lengthen our stride but to shorten the distance to be covered. But with confidence in ourselves and in our future what a nation we could be!

Margaret Thatcher
I am an ally of the United States. We believe the same things, we believe passionately in the same battle of ideas, we will defend them to the hilt. Never try to separate me from them.

Margaret Thatcher
I don't want to fight any wars; if you can get them off before we get there, you do it, but off they go.

Margaret Thatcher
It seems like cloud cuckoo land... If anyone is suggesting that I would go to Parliament and suggest the abolition of the pound sterling – no! … We have made it quite clear that we will not have a single currency imposed on us.

Margaret Thatcher
Imagine a Labour canvasser talking on the doorstep to those East German families when they settle in, on freedom's side of the wall. "You want to keep more of the money you earn? I'm afraid that's very selfish. We shall want to tax that away. You want to own shares in your firm? We can't have that. The state has to own your firm. You want to choose where to send your children to school? That's very divisive. You'll send your child where we tell you." Mr President, the trouble with Labour is that they're just not at home with freedom. Socialists don't like ordinary people choosing, for they might not choose Socialism.

Margaret Thatcher
The lesson of the century has been that the people feel far more comfortable and more stable with a nation state. It is the nation state which is the unit of loyalty. Ours is the United Kingdom.

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

Margaret Thatcher
If you lead a country like Britain... you have to have a touch of iron about you.

Margaret Thatcher
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