Margaret Thatcher Love Quotes and Sayings
#1 ABC-TV Interview with Barbara Walters, 18 March 1987
1. To wear your heart on your sleeve isn’t a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.
#2 Remarks on becoming Prime Minister (St Francis’s prayer), 4 May 1979, Outside No.10 Downing Street [S]
2. Well, of course, I just owe almost everything to my own father. I really do. He brought me up to believe all the things that I do believe and they’re just the values on which I’ve fought the Election. And it’s passionately interesting for me that the things that I learned in a small town, in very modest home, are just the things that I believe have won the Election.
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Excerpt from Wikipedia: Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, Order of the Garter, Order of Merit, Privy Council of the United Kingdom, Fellow of the Royal Society (née Roberts, 13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013) was a British Conservative Party politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and the Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century and is the only woman to have held the office. A Soviet journalist called her the “Iron Lady”, a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. As Prime Minister, she implemented policies that have come to be known as Thatcherism.
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Sayings by Margaret Thatcher
#1 National Union of Townswomen’s Guilds Annual Report 1965, pp8-9 (2) Evening News, 20 May 1965 [S]
1. In politics, if you want anything said ask a man, if you want anything done ask a woman.
#2 Secretary of State For Education and Science, Thames Television’s Flagship shows – ‘Today, This Week and TV Eye’ [S]
2. I started life with two great advantages: no money and good parents. Now, no money can be an advantage because you’ve jolly well got to fight your own way, and good parents are the best advantage of all.
#3 Speech to General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 21 May 1988 [S]
3. But it is not the creation of wealth that is wrong but love of money for its own sake. The spiritual dimension comes in deciding what one does with the wealth.
#4 Speech to the Institute of SocioEconomic Studies (“Let Our Children Grow Tall”), 15 September 1975 [S]
4. I would say, let our children grow tall and some taller than others if they have the ability in them to do so. Because we must build a society in which each citizen can develop his full potential, both for his own benefit and for the community as a whole, a society in which originality, skill, energy and thrift are rewarded, in which we encourage rather than restrict the variety and richness of human nature.
#5 The Times, 1980
5. I love argument, I love debate. I don’t expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that’s not their job.
#6 Speech in the House of Commons, 24 November 1976 [S]
6. If we are to have opportunity, we cannot have equality, because the two are opposite. We may have equality of opportunity, but if the only opportunity is to be equal, it is not opportunity.
#8 Observer, 4 April 1989
8. I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
#9 Wikiquote: Speech to the Young Conservative Conference in Eastbourne (13 February 1977), Quoted in The Times (14 February 1977), p. 3
9. To me there is only one way to judge a person, whatever his background, whatever his colour, whatever his religion, and that is what that person is, and not by his race or creed. That is what I believe in, that is what I will tell everyone and that is what I try to achieve everything.
Closest match: I believe we should judge people on merit and not on background. I believe the person who is prepared to work hardest should get the greatest rewards and keep them after tax. [S]
#10 “Which criticism offends you most?”, TV Interview for Italian Television (RAI), 10 March 1986 [S]
10. That is always very very difficult. In my work, you get used to criticisms. Of course you do, because there are a lot of people trying to get you down, but I always cheer up immensely if one is particularly wounding because I think well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. That is why my father always taught me: never worry about anyone who attacks you personally; it means their arguments carry no weight and they know it.
#11 “You were first woman Prime Minister in Britain. Is there a secret way to get to the top?”, TV Interview for Italian Television (RAI), 10 March 1986 [S]
11. I do not think it is really very different in politics from any other profession, or indeed in sport or music or the arts. It means working incredibly hard; it means trying to master your subject; it means always trying to improve and in our case always trying to understand people and trying to put your case. But 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 it should get you pretty near, but everyone needs just a little bit of luck. Sometimes the times work with you. I have known people being very very able but just their time did not come.
#12 Quoted in Margaret Thatcher: A Portrait of the Iron Lady, John Blundell, Algora Publishing, 2008
12. I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it.
Variant: I make up my mind about people in the first 10 seconds, and I very rarely change it. [S]
#13-14 Speech to Conservative Party Conference, 10 October 1975 [S]
13. We are all unequal. No one, thank heavens, is like anyone else, however much the Socialists may pretend otherwise. We believe that everyone has the right to be unequal but to us every human being is equally important.
14. Freedom to choose is something we take for granted—until it is in danger of being taken away.
#15 Interview for Press Association (10th anniversary as Prime Minister), 3 May 1989 [S]
15. You know, if you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything, wouldn’t you, at any time? And you would achieve nothing!
#16 Speech to Conservative Party Conference (‘the lady’s not for turning’) [“The Reason Why”], 10 October 1980 [S]
16. To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the “U” turn, I have only one thing to say. “You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.” I say that not only to you but to our friends overseas and also to those who are not our friends.
#17 Christmas Message, 24 December 1964 [S]
17. All who have occasion to see cases of human tragedy and greed, appreciate more perfectly than before the value of the things which no amount of money can buy. Good health, the ability to see and hear the beauties of nature, the love and warmth of the family circle, the goodwill and loyalty of friends. A Christmas stocking full of these would indeed contain pearls beyond price.
#18 Speech at Lord Mayor’s Banquet, 12 November 1979 [S]
18. Pennies don’t fall from heaven, they have to be earned here on earth.
#19 TV Interview for London Weekend Television Weekend World, 6 January 1980 [1], [2]
19. No-one would remember the good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; he had money as well.
#20 “Do you think that your upbringing prepared you for the kind of life that you have to lead?”, TV Interview for Yorkshire Television Woman to Woman, 2 October 1985 [S]
20. All my upbringing was to instill into both my sister and I a fantastic sense of duty, a great sense of whatever you do you are personally responsible for it. You do not blame society. Society is not anyone. You are personally responsible and just remember that you live among a whole lot of people and you must do things for them, and you must make up your own mind.
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Unsourced Quotes by Margaret Thatcher
1. Christmas is a day of meaning and traditions, a special day spent in the warm circle of family and friends.
2. Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan.
3. It used to be about trying to do something. Now it’s about trying to be someone.
4. Don’t follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.
5. Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas.
6. You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.
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Quotes wrongly attributed to Margaret Thatcher
#1 Jesse Carr, in Newsweek, Vol. 88, 1976, p. 77
1. Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.