Margaret Thatcher - Politics Quotes

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

Margaret Thatcher
It is always important in matters of high politics to know what you do not know. Those who think they know, but are mistaken, and act upon their mistakes, are the most dangerous people to have in charge.

Margaret Thatcher
Of her predecessor, Edward Heath:
I'll always be fond of dear Ted, but there's no sympathy in politics.

Margaret Thatcher
In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.

Margaret Thatcher
My father, more perceptive than many, wryly commented that by the time I was an adult there might not be an Indian Civil Service to enter. He turned out to be right. I had to settle for British politics instead.

Margaret Thatcher
I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.

Margaret Thatcher
People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture … We are not in politics to ignore peoples' worries: we are in politics to deal with them.

Margaret Thatcher
Now, that brings me to the Liberal Party. I gather that during the last few days there have been some ill-natured jokes about their new symbol, a bird of some kind, adopted by the Liberal Democrats at Blackpool. Politics is a serious business, and one should not lower the tone unduly. So I will say only this of the Liberal Democrat symbol and of the party it symbolises. This is an ex-parrot. It is not merely stunned. It has ceased to be, expired and gone to meet its maker. It is a parrot no more. It has rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is a late parrot. And now for something completely different.

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
I suppose I was about 20, and a crowd of us had been to a village hop and came back to make midnight cups of coffee. I was in the kitchen helping to dish up and having a fierce argument with one of the boys in the crowd when someone else interrupted to say: 'Of course Margaret, you will go into politics won't you?' I stopped dead. Suddenly it was crystalised for me. I knew.

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
You can present people with ideas they may come to believe in, and as a result of them they will act, if they have the opportunities. Presenting people with opportunities is part of what politics is about.

Margaret Thatcher