Top 513 Quotes & Sayings by Margaret Thatcher

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English leader Margaret Thatcher.

Last updated on September 17, 2024.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. The longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century, she was the first woman to hold that office. As prime minister, she implemented policies that became known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.

English - Leader | October 13, 1925 - April 8, 2013

Source: Wikipedia

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.

Margaret Thatcher

Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.

Margaret Thatcher

There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.

Margaret Thatcher

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

Margaret Thatcher

To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches.

Margaret Thatcher

It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.

Margaret Thatcher

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

Margaret Thatcher

What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose.

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

I owe nothing to Women's Lib.

Margaret Thatcher

Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.

Margaret Thatcher

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

Margaret Thatcher

Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.

Margaret Thatcher

I love argument, I love debate. I don't expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that's not their job.

Margaret Thatcher

We Conservatives hate unemployment.

Margaret Thatcher

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

Margaret Thatcher

If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.

Margaret Thatcher

If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.

Margaret Thatcher

If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn't swim.

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

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

Margaret Thatcher

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

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

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

What Britain needs is an iron lady.

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

I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.

Margaret Thatcher

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

Margaret Thatcher

To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.

Margaret Thatcher

No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.

Margaret Thatcher

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

Margaret Thatcher

Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.

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 may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

Margaret Thatcher

It may be the cock that crows, but it is the hen that lays the eggs.

Margaret Thatcher

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

Margaret Thatcher

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money.

Margaret Thatcher

It's a funny old world.

Margaret Thatcher

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

Margaret Thatcher

Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus.

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

Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan.

Margaret Thatcher

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

Margaret Thatcher

I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it.

Margaret Thatcher

Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth.

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

There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.

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've got a woman's ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it.

Margaret Thatcher

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

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

This lady is not for turning.

Margaret Thatcher

Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.

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

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

Margaret Thatcher

I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air.

Margaret Thatcher

To wear your heart on your sleeve isn't a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.

Margaret Thatcher

Power is like being a lady... if you have to tell people you are, you aren't.

Margaret Thatcher

Let us never forget this fundamental truth: the State has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves. If the State wishes to spend more it can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more. It is no good thinking that someone else will pay - that 'someone else' is you. There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers' money.

Margaret Thatcher

Top 513 Quotes & Sayings by Margaret Thatcher

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