Margaret Thatcher Quotes

262 Sourced Quotes

My first guiding principle is this: willing and active co-operation between independent sovereign states. Europe will be stronger precisely because it has France as France, Spain as Spain, Britain as Britain, each with its own customs, traditions and identity. It would be folly to try to fit them into some sort of identikit European personality.

Margaret Thatcher
I believe we should continue to have a partnership of national states each retaining the right to protect its vital interests, but developing more effectively than at present the habit of working together.

Margaret Thatcher
I exercise my right as a free citizen to spend my own money in my own way, so that I can go on the day, the time, to the doctor I choose and get out fast.

Margaret Thatcher
What really gets me is this - it's very ironic that those who are most critical of extra tax are those who are most vociferous in demanding extra expenditure. What gets me even more is that having demanded that extra expenditure they are not prepared to face the consequences of their own action and stand by the necessity to get the tax to pay for it. I wish some of them had a bit more guts and courage than they have.

Margaret Thatcher
Our judgement is that the presence of the Royal Marines garrison is sufficient deterrent against any possible aggression.

Margaret Thatcher
We introduced the Community Charge. I still call it that. I like the Poles - I never had any intention of taxing them.

Margaret Thatcher
When hecklers stand up, I get a mental jump for joy. It gives me something to get my teeth into - and the audiences love it.

Margaret Thatcher
Please don't use the word tough. People might get the impression that I don't care. And I do care, very deeply. Resilient, I think.

Margaret Thatcher
It took us a long time to get rid of the effects of the French Revolution 200 years ago. We don't want another one.

Margaret Thatcher
I was turned out because I said to Europe no, no, no. That no, no, no has now turned into yes, yes. Two yes's not three because he got the Social Chapter out and he's reserved his position on the single currency.

Margaret Thatcher
I'll stay until I'm tired of it. So long as Britain needs me, I shall never be tired of it.

Margaret Thatcher
I calculate that I was responsible for proposing the elevation to the Lords of some 214 of its present numbers.

Margaret Thatcher
I must be absolutely clear about this. Britain cannot accept the present situation on the budget. It is demonstrably unjust. It is politically indefensible. I cannot play Sister Bountiful to the Community while my own electorate are being asked to forego improvements in the fields of health, education, welfare and the rest

Margaret Thatcher
I couldn't live without work. That's what makes me so sympathetic towards those people who are unemployed. I don't know how they live without working.

Margaret Thatcher
There are dangers in consensus: it could be an attempt to satisfy people holding no particular views about anything.... No great party can survive except on the basis of firm beliefs about what it wants to do.

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

Margaret Thatcher
When you stop a dictator, there are always risks. But there are greater risks in not stopping a dictator.

Margaret Thatcher
The Government wants a peaceful settlement. But we totally reject a peaceful sell-out.

Margaret Thatcher
I went to Oxford University - but I've never let that hold me back.

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
We weren't getting a fair deal on the budget and I wasn't going to have it. There's a great strand of equity and fairness in the British people - this is our characteristic. There's not a strand of equity and fairness in Europe - they're out to get as much as they can. That's one of those enormous differences. So I tackled it on that basis.

Margaret Thatcher
No Western nation has to build a wall round itself to keep its people in.

Margaret Thatcher