Top 350 Margaret Thatcher Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “Europe will never be like America. Europe is a product of history. America is a product of philosophy.”

— Margaret Thatcher

52. “When all the objectives of government include the achievement of equality – other than equality before the law – that government poses a threat to liberty.”

— Margaret Thatcher

53. “Our children need strong families raising them with sturdy virtues, not to be smothered in the cold arms of the state.”

— Margaret Thatcher

54. “A man may climb Everest for himself, but at the summit he plants his country’s flag.”

— Margaret Thatcher

55. “Hope is no basis for a defense policy.”

— Margaret Thatcher

56. “If we open our hearts to God, He has promised to work within us.”

— Margaret Thatcher

57. “Socialists don’t like ordinary people choosing, for they might not choose socialism.”

— Margaret Thatcher

58. “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

59. “No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; he had money as well.”

— Margaret Thatcher

60. “People from my sort of background needed grammar schools to compete with children from privileged homes like Shirley Williams and Anthony Wedgwood Benn.”

— Margaret Thatcher

61. “Remember, George, this is no time to go wobbly.”

— Margaret Thatcher

62. “Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose.”

— Margaret Thatcher

63. “In my view dictators do not surrender. They have to be well and truly defeated.”

— Margaret Thatcher

64. “Failure? The possibilities do not exist.”

— Margaret Thatcher

65. “I’ll stay until I’m tired of it. So long as Britain needs me, I shall never be tired of it.”

— Margaret Thatcher

66. “Many of our troubles are due to the fact that our people turn to politicians for everything.”

— Margaret Thatcher

67. “In order to unscramble some eggs the leader gotta have some balls.”

— Margaret Thatcher

68. “Socialism lays an bad egg by killing the capitalism that lays the golden eggs.”

— Margaret Thatcher

69. “It’s a funny old world.”

— Margaret Thatcher

70. “If it’s me against 48, I feel sorry for the 48.”

— Margaret Thatcher

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

— Margaret Thatcher

72. “When people are free to choose, they choose freedom.”

— Margaret Thatcher

73. “Working hard may not make you rich, but it should make you successful.”

— Margaret Thatcher

74. “Of course it’s the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.”

— Margaret Thatcher

75. “Unless we change our ways and our direction, our greatness as a nation will soon be a footnote in the history books, a distant memory of an offshore island, lost in the mist of time like Camelot, remembered kindly for its noble past.”

— Margaret Thatcher

76. “Free enterprise has enabled the creative and the acquisitive urges of man to be given expression in a way which benefits all members of society. Let free enterprise fight back now, not for itself, but for all those who believe in freedom.”

— Margaret Thatcher

77. “The National Health Service is safe with us. The principle of adequate healthcare should be provided for all regardless of ability to pay must be the function of any arrangements for financing the NHS. We stand by that.”

— Margaret Thatcher

78. “We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty.”

— Margaret Thatcher

79. “I came to office with one deliberate intent: to change Britain from a dependent to a self-reliant society – from a give-it-to-me, to a do-it-yourself nation. A get-up-and-go, instead of a sit-back-and-wait-for-it Britain.”

— Margaret Thatcher

80. “Leadership is about having principles. A leader must have a vision and principles that will endure for all time and must always be true to these principles, applying them to changing circumstances.”

— Margaret Thatcher

81. “All attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail. It must be business as usual.”

— Margaret Thatcher

82. “Most women defend themselves. It is the female of the species-it is the tigress and lioness in you which tends to defend when attacked.”

— Margaret Thatcher

83. “When you take into public ownership a profitable industry the profits soon disappear. The goose that laid the golden eggs goes broody. State geese are not great layers.”

— Margaret Thatcher

84. “Peace is hard work and we must not allow people to forget it.”

— Margaret Thatcher

85. “Business success isn’t just a selfish aim. Profits spread beyond those who make them and bring jobs and prosperity.”

— Margaret Thatcher

86. “The secret of happiness is to live within your income and pay your bills on time.”

— Margaret Thatcher

87. “Never flinch. Make up your own mind and do it.”

— Margaret Thatcher

88. “Our aim is to make tax collecting a declining industry.”

— Margaret Thatcher

89. “We are not prepared to consider special category status for certain groups of people serving sentences for crime. Crime is crime is crime, it is not political.”

— Margaret Thatcher

90. “You do not achieve anything without trouble, ever.”

— Margaret Thatcher

91. “I believe in the acceptance of personal responsibility, freedom of choice, and the British Empire, which took freedom and the rule of law to countries which would never have known it otherwise.”

— Margaret Thatcher

92. “No generation has a free hold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy-with a full repairing lease.”

— Margaret Thatcher

93. “Let our children grow tall and some taller than others if they have it in them to do so.”

— Margaret Thatcher

94. “Consensus is the negation of leadership.”

— Margaret Thatcher

95. “When will Labour learn that you cannot build Jerusalem in Brussels.”

— Margaret Thatcher

96. “I’m either the witch or Lady Macbeth of English politics, but someone gotta wear the pants in England when others wearing kilts.”

— Margaret Thatcher

97. “The application of collective guilt, running from one generation to another, is a dangerous doctrine which would leave few modern nations unscathed.”

— Margaret Thatcher

98. “There are too many people who imagine that there is something sophisticated about always believing the best of those who hate your country, and the worst of those who defend it.”

— Margaret Thatcher

99. “Putting the World to Rights.”

— Margaret Thatcher

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

— Margaret Thatcher