I have a habit of comparing the phraseology of communiques…noting a certain similarity of words, a certain similarity of optimism…and a certain similarity in the lack of practical results during the ensuring years.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Communication
One only gets to the top rung of the ladder by steadily climbing up one at a time, and suddenly all sorts of powers, all sorts of abilities which you thought never belonged to you—suddenly become within your own possibility and you think, “Well, I’ll have a go, too.”
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Success
I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Agreement
This lady is not for turning.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Perseverance, Persistence
In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Action
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
You may have to fight a battle more than once to win.
—Margaret Thatcher
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 should get you pretty near.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Success, Work, Hard Work
Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Success & Failure, Achievement
Women have plenty of roles in which they can serve with distinction: some of us even run countries. But generally we are better at wielding the handbag than the bayonet.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Women
I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Cheerfulness
I love being at the center of things.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Power
I love argument, I love debate. I don’t expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that’s not their job
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Arguments
People constantly requesting government intervention are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Society, Government
Pennies don’t fall from heaven. They have to be earned on earth.
—Margaret Thatcher
Pennies do not come from heaven—they have to be earned here on earth.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Luck, Work
People think that at the top there isn’t much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Opportunity
Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Nation
Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Fashion
Of course, it is the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Truth
Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s when you’ve had everything to do, and you’ve done it.
—Margaret Thatcher
I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Politicians, Politics
If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn’t swim.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Criticism
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
Topics: Women
I shan’t be pulling the levers there but I shall be a very good back-seat driver.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Power
The battle for women’s rights has been largely won.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Equality
I owe nothing to Women’s Lib.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Women, Luck, Feminism
If it is once again one against forty-eight, then I am very sorry for the forty-eight.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Opposition, Dissent
You don’t tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Lies, Lying, Deception/Lying
To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.
—Margaret Thatcher
Topics: Agreement
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Enoch Powell British Politician
Harold Macmillan British Head of State
Benjamin Disraeli British Head of State
William Ewart Gladstone English Liberal Statesman
Neville Chamberlain British Head of State
Ramsay MacDonald British Head of State
David Lloyd George British Liberal Statesman
E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax British Politician
Indira Gandhi Indian Head of State