Top 350 Margaret Thatcher Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “What happened in Russia in 1917 wasn’t a revolution – it was a coup d’etat.”

— Margaret Thatcher

102. “Remember the ‘Parable of the Talents’ in the New Testament? Christ exhorts us to be the best we can be by developing our skills and abilities, by succeeding in all our tasks and endeavors. What better description can there be of capitalism?”

— Margaret Thatcher

103. “I owe nothing to Women’s Lib.”

— Margaret Thatcher

104. “One of my favourite quotations is: ‘That which thy father bequeathed thee, earn it anew, if thou wouldst possess it.’”

— Margaret Thatcher

105. “Dictators can be deterred, they can be crushed-but they can never be appeased.”

— Margaret Thatcher

106. “You don’t tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.”

— Margaret Thatcher

107. “I am always on the job.”

— Margaret Thatcher

108. “Advisers advise, and ministers decide.”

— Margaret Thatcher

109. “It will be years – not in my time – before a woman will become Prime Minister.”

— Margaret Thatcher

110. “The spirit of envy can destroy; it can never build.”

— Margaret Thatcher

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

— Margaret Thatcher

112. “If you have a sense of purpose and a sense of direction, I believe people will follow you. Democracy isn’t just about deducing what the people want. Democracy is leading the people as well.”

— Margaret Thatcher

113. “Young people ought not to be idle, it is very bad for them.”

— Margaret Thatcher

114. “This business of the working class is on its way out I think. After all, aren’t I working class? I work jolly hard, I can tell you.”

— Margaret Thatcher

115. “When you stop a dictator, there are always risks. But there are greater risks in not stopping a dictator.”

— Margaret Thatcher

116. “We had to do what we had to do – Britain is great again.”

— Margaret Thatcher

117. “As prime minister, I worked closely with Ronald Reagan for eight of the most important years of all our lives. We talked regularly both before and after his presidency. And I have had time and cause to reflect on what made him a great president.”

— Margaret Thatcher

118. “If your only opportunity is to be equal then it is not opportunity.”

— Margaret Thatcher

119. “I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.”

— Margaret Thatcher

120. “I went to Oxford University – but I’ve never let that hold me back.”

— Margaret Thatcher

121. “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

122. “America, my friends, is the only country in the world actually founded on liberty – the only one. People went to America to be free.”

— Margaret Thatcher

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

— Margaret Thatcher

124. “The first step in calculating which way to go is to find out where you are.”

— Margaret Thatcher

125. “Forget that I’m a woman. Forget the accusations that I am a Right Winger demanding privilege – I had precious little privilege in my early years.”

— Margaret Thatcher

126. “The Government wants a peaceful settlement. But we totally reject a peaceful sell-out.”

— Margaret Thatcher

127. “We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels.”

— Margaret Thatcher

128. “The Russians put guns before butter. We put just about everything before guns.”

— Margaret Thatcher

129. “First you win the argument, then you win the vote.”

— Margaret Thatcher

130. “Citizenship should be based on those who have a close and real relationship with this country and its inhabitants.”

— Margaret Thatcher

131. “We speak of peace, yes, but whose peace? Poland’s? Bulgaria’s? The peace of the grave?”

— Margaret Thatcher

132. “Marxists get up early to further their cause. We must get up even earlier to defend our freedom.”

— Margaret Thatcher

133. “Good Conservatives always pay their bills. And on time. Not like the Socialists who run up other people’s bills.”

— Margaret Thatcher

134. “Our judgement is that the presence of the Royal Marines garrison is sufficient deterrent against any possible aggression.”

— Margaret Thatcher

135. “There is a nonsense about intelligent women not being beautiful.”

— Margaret Thatcher

136. “I want a capital-earning democracy. Every man and woman a capitalist. Housing is the start. If you’re a man or woman of property, you’ve got something. So every man a capitalist, and every man a man of property.”

— Margaret Thatcher

137. “I’m not a good butcher but I’ve had to learn to carve the joint. People expect a new look.”

— Margaret Thatcher

138. “The woman’s mission is not to enhance the masculine spirit, but to express the feminine; hers is not to preserve a man-made world, but to create a human world by the infusion of the feminine element into all of its activities.”

— Margaret Thatcher

139. “Any leader has to have a certain amount of steel in them, so I am not that put out being called the Iron Lady.”

— Margaret Thatcher

140. “Life’s greatest reward is life itself.”

— Margaret Thatcher

141. “Rooster, maybe well crows, but the eggs still bears the chicken.”

— Margaret Thatcher

142. “To be free is better than to be unfree – always. Any politician who suggests the opposite should be treated as suspect.”

— Margaret Thatcher

143. “You can’t lead from the crowd.”

— Margaret Thatcher

144. “Terrorism thrives on a free society. The terrorist uses the feelings in a free society to sap the will of civilization to resist. If the terrorist succeeds, he has won and the whole of free society has lost.”

— Margaret Thatcher

145. “Everything a politician promises at election time has to be paid for either by higher taxation or by borrowing.”

— Margaret Thatcher

146. “Socialism is in no way a curate’s egg.”

— Margaret Thatcher

147. “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

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

— Margaret Thatcher

149. “Whether manufactured by black, white, brown or yellow hands, a widget remains a widget – and it will be bought anywhere if the price and quality are right. The market is a more powerful and more reliable liberating force than government can ever be.”

— Margaret Thatcher

150. “The accumulation of wealth is a process which is of itself morally neutral. True, as Christianity teaches, riches bring temptations. But then so does poverty.”

— Margaret Thatcher