Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)

Quotes

• Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; its when you had everything to do, and you've done it.

• Europe will never be like America. Europe is a product of history. America is a product of philosophy.

• Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.

• Being powerful is a lot like being a woman: If you have to tell someone that you are, invariably, you are not.

• If it is once again one against forty-eight, then I am very sorry for the forty-eight.

• I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is 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 to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation

• It is important not to allow ever wider coalition-building to become an end in itself. As we saw in the Gulf War of 1990, international pressures, particularly those exerted from within an alliance, can result in the failure to follow actions through and so leave future problems unresolved.

• I too have a certain idea of America. Moreover, I would not feel entitled to say that of any other country, except my own. This is not just sentiment, though I always feel ten years younger – despite the jet-lag – when I set foot on American soil: there is something so positive, generous, and open about the people – and everything actually works.

• If…many influential people have failed to understand , or have just forgotten, what were up against in the Cold War and how we overcame it, they are not going to be capable of securing, let alone enlarging, the gains that liberty has made.

• As the former dissident Vladimir Bukovsky one remarked — referring to the Russian proverb to the effect that you cannot make an omlette without breaking eggs — he had seen plenty of broken eggs, but had never tasted any omlette.

• Douglas, Douglas, you would make Neville Chamberlain look like a warmonger.

• To wear your heart on your sleeve isn't a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.

• Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.

• I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds; and I very rarely change it.

• You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

• Being a leader is like being a lady, if you have to go around telling people you are one, you aren't.

• A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us.

• Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.

• 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.

• I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.