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Margaret Thatcher Quotes (1925-2013)
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About Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013) was a British politician and stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime minister and the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century. As prime minister, she implemented neoliberal economic policies of deregulation and privatization 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.
Best Margaret Thatcher Quotes
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful Margaret Thatcher quotes.
“This is what we believe.”
“The fightback begins now!”
“I fight on, I fight to win.”
“Oh, those poor shopkeepers!”
“Clear. Decisive. Purposeful.”
“We have become a grandmother.”
“I owe nothing to Women's Lib.”
“What do you think of those two?”
“Advisers advise, Ministers decide!”
“Every prime minister needs a Willie.”
“I can't bear Britain in decline. I just can't.”
“There really is no alternative.”
“I am the rebel head of an establishment government.”
“We've beaten the Germans twice and now they're back!”
“Parents can best exert influence through local authorities”
“My job is to stop Britain from going red.”
Margaret Thatcher Quotes by Topic
Find exactly what you are looking for by browsing this categorized list of Margaret Thatcher quotes by topic.
Margaret Thatcher on Falklands War 4 quotes
“But when you are at war you cannot allow the difficulties to dominate your thinking: you have to set out with an iron will to overcome them. And anyway what was the alternative? That a common or garden dictator should rule over the Queen's subjects and prevail by fraud and violence? Not while I was prime minister.”
Margaret Thatcher on United Kingdom 3 quotes
“I can't bear Britain in decline. I just can't.”
Margaret Thatcher on Conservatism 3 quotes
“Our opponents like to try and make you believe that Conservatism is a privilege of the few. But Conservatism conserves all that is great and best in our national heritage.”
Margaret Thatcher on European Union 3 quotes
“It is, in fact, a classic utopian project, a monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure: only the scale of the final damage done is in doubt.”
Margaret Thatcher on Europe 3 quotes
“What we should grasp, however, from the lessons of European history is that, first, there is nothing necessarily benevolent about programmes of European integration; second, the desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom; and third, European unity has been tried before, and the outcome was far from happy.”
Margaret Thatcher on Economy of the United Kingdom 3 quotes
“We've been working to restore the political system to bring out all that was best in the British character. That's what we've done. It's called Thatcherism – it's got nothing to do with Thatcher except that I was merely the vehicle for it. But it is in everything I do. It's a mixture of fundamentally sound economics. You live within your means; you have honest money, so therefore you don't make reckless promises. You recognise human nature is such that it needs incentives to work harder, so you cut your tax. It is about being worthwhile and honourable. And about the family. And about that something which is really rather unique and enterprising in the British character – it's about how we built an Empire, and how we gave sound administration and sound law to large areas of the world. All those things are still there in the British people aren't they?”
Margaret Thatcher on Nations 2 quotes
“We shall have to learn again to be one nation, or one day we shall be no nation.”
Margaret Thatcher on Socialism 2 quotes
“Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them.”
Margaret Thatcher on Victorian era 2 quotes
“When I speak of Victorian values, I mean respect for the individual, thrift, initiative, a sense of personal responsibility, respect for others and their property, and all the other values that characterised the best of the Victorian era.”
Margaret Thatcher on Cold War 2 quotes
“I am for détente — who is not? I am also for attente, for wanting to see results; for not letting down our guard; for keeping our powder dry. Let them show us that they will practise what they preach, about reducing the threat of war, about non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries.”
Margaret Thatcher on Nationalization 2 quotes
“I think they've made the biggest financial mess that any government's ever made in this country for a very long time, and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they're now trying to control everything by other means. They're progressively reducing the choice available to ordinary people.”
What Margaret Thatcher Said About Others
Discover personal opinions Margaret Thatcher shared regarding contemporaries.
Margaret Thatcher on Enoch Powell 7 quotes
“His intellect was second to none... Enoch got us on to the right argument about inflation.”
Margaret Thatcher on Friedrich Hayek 5 quotes
“Adam Smith, the greatest exponent of free enterprise economics till Hayek and Friedman.”
Margaret Thatcher on Douglas Hurd 2 quotes
“I find him very loyal and he's an honourable man.”
Margaret Thatcher on Nigel Lawson 2 quotes
“Something always goes wrong when Nigel goes abroad.”
Margaret Thatcher on John Major 2 quotes
“I will tell you in confidence; he was the best of a very poor bunch.”
Margaret Thatcher on Michael Foot 2 quotes
“I was very sorry to hear the news. He was a great parliamentarian and a man of high principles.”
Margaret Thatcher on Alec Douglas-Home 2 quotes
“Integrity shone out of Alec Douglas-Home. Everyone trusted and admired him... He represented all that was best in his generation.”
Margaret Thatcher on Denis Healey 2 quotes
“The right hon. Gentleman will be known for ever as the only Chancellor in the post-war period who brought this country to the brink of bankruptcy.”
Margaret Thatcher on Roy Jenkins 2 quotes
“I thought it was horrifying that they threw him out at Hillhead. A man of such great distinction and stature. It was dreadful. It tells you something about the Scots.”
Margaret Thatcher on Indira Gandhi 2 quotes
“I lunched with Indira Gandhi in her own modest home, where she insisted on seeing that her guests were all looked after and clearing away the plates while discussing matters of high politics. ... I found myself liking Mrs Gandhi herself. Perhaps I naturally sympathized with a woman politician faced with the huge strains and difficulties of governing a country as vast as India.”
Margaret Thatcher on Michael Heseltine 2 quotes
“I decided to give Michael his big chance and put him into Defence. There Michael's strengths and weaknesses were both apparent. He defended our approach to nuclear arms with great panache and inflicted a series of defeats on CND and the Labour Left. He reorganized the MoD, rationalizing its traditional federal structure. Supported by me in the face of departmental obstruction, he brought in Peter Levene to run defence procurement on sound business lines. These were real achievements. But Michael's sense of priorities was gravely distorted by his personal ambitions and political obsessions.”
Margaret Thatcher on William Whitelaw, 1st Viscount Whitelaw
“Every prime minister needs a Willie.”
Quotes About Margaret Thatcher
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about Margaret Thatcher from others.
Marjorie Agosín on Margaret Thatcher
Perry Anderson on Margaret Thatcher
“The fall of Margaret Thatcher in the autumn of 1990 had much of the appearance of a return of British politics to its modern starting-point in the early sixties.”
Anonymous former senior civil servant interviewed by on Margaret Thatcher
“Remember how close the IRA came to killing her at Brighton in 1984. I have a sense that she feels she has been living on borrowed time and that she has so much left to do ever since. As you know, she needs very little sleep and sits up there in that study of hers on the first floor of No. 10 until the small hours. It's as if she looks out the window and sees the camp fires of her enemies who are surrounding her, just waiting for her to go. And she knows that so many of the old ways and policies she despises will begin to reappear the moment she does.”
Paddy Ashdown on Margaret Thatcher
“When she came to power in 1979 we genuinely debated whether or not those who governed Britain would be the trade unions or the elected Government of our country. I think her most significant achievement is that that question is no longer asked. She has had a unique character and unique strengths and abilities and unique faults as well.”
Tony Banks on Margaret Thatcher
“She behaves with all the sensitivity of a sex-starved boa constrictor.”
Tony Benn on Margaret Thatcher 2 quotes
“In terms of stamina and persistence, you have to admit Margaret Thatcher is an extraordinary woman. She came out of Number 10, saying "I fight on. I fight to win." Then she went to the House and made a statement on the Paris CSCE talks. You would think she would be downcast after that setback, but not at all. When Paddy Ashdown said that the Paris Treaty was one of the great moments of the twilight of her premiership, she replied, "As for twilight, people should remember that there is a 24-hour clock", which was a smashing answer.”
Jeremy Black on Margaret Thatcher
“In Britain, Thatcher was comfortably re-elected in 1983 and 1987, and the radical left-wing challenge of a coal miners’ strike designed in effect to bring down the government was defeated in 1984–5. This strike had its own dynamic very much located in British industrial and labour politics, but can also be placed within the Cold War. The leadership of the British NUM (National Union of Mineworkers), was very left-wing and was ready to take money from both the Soviet Union and Libya. Faced by a national dock strike in support of the miners, the government, in July 1984, drew up plans for troops to move coal and food around the country. Thatcher’s closest aides saw the struggle as one to maintain effective government. In the end, the dock strike petered out in 1984. As another link with Cold War tensions, Thatcher survived an IRA bomb attack in 1984. The provision of arms to the IRA in part came from American sympathisers of Irish origin, but Eastern Bloc supplies were also significant, notably from Libya and Czechoslovakia. The IRA endorsed radical Marxist positions.”
William Boyd on Margaret Thatcher
“I've not seen one interview in recent years where she hasn't wiped the floor with the interviewer with contemptuous ease.”
Gordon Brown on Margaret Thatcher
“She will be remembered not only for being Britain's first female prime minister and holding the office for eleven years, but also for the determination and resilience with which she carried out all her duties throughout her public life. Even those who disagreed with her never doubted the strength of her convictions and her unwavering belief in Britain's destiny in the world.”
Louise Burfitt-Dons on Margaret Thatcher
“Her iron will won international respect. Her unabashed femininity gained women's. Margaret Thatcher was a lady's lady.”
George H. W. Bush on Margaret Thatcher 2 quotes
“I'll miss her because I value her counsel. I value her long experience and the wisdom that comes from that experience. She has been an outstanding Prime Minister for the United Kingdom and an outstanding friend to the United States.”
Disputed Quotes
Quotes attributed to Margaret Thatcher that are questionable.
“Victorian values.”
“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”
“Remember, George, this is no time to go wobbly.”
Misattributed Quotes
Quotes mistakenly credited to Margaret Thatcher
About Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013) was a British politician and stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime minister and the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century. As prime minister, she implemented neoliberal economic policies of deregulation and privatization 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.