Last Updated on 21 June 2024

Quotes from Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)

• Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.
• Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.
• Defeat? I do not recognise the meaning of the word.
• Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the high road to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.
• I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
• I love argument. I love debate. I don’t expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me – that’s not their job.
• If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time and you would achieve nothing.
• If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.
• It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.
• It pays to know the enemy – not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.
• 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.
• No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions. He had money as well.
• There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families.
• There is no week, nor day, nor hour, when tyranny may not enter upon this country, if the people lose their supreme confidence in themselves, and lose their roughness and spirit of defiance. Tyranny may always enter — there is no charm or bar against it.
• When you’ve spent half your political life dealing with humdrum issues like the environment, it’s exciting to have a real crisis on your hands.
• You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.