Margaret Thatcher quotes - page 16

Failure? Do you remember what Queen Victoria once said? "Failure-the possibilities do not exist”. (Margaret Thatcher)
Do you know, one of the greatest problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas? Now, thoughts and ideas, that interests me. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
You've really outlined an approval of what I would call Victorian value. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
Don't take public opinion for granted – but don't either underrate the degree to which good people will endure sacrifices for a worthwhile cause. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
Don't fall into the trap of imagining that the West can remake societies. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
Human rights did not begin with the French Revolution instead, they really stem from a mixture of Judaism and Christianity. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
The spirit of envy can destroy; it can never build. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
We Conservatives hate unemployment. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
If... many influential people have failed to understand, or have just forgotten, what we 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. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
Some Socialists seem to believe that people should be numbers in a State computer. We believe they should be individuals. 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. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
I call the Conservative Party now to a crusade. Not only the Conservative Party. I appeal to all those men and women of goodwill who do not want a Marxist future for themselves or their children or their children's children. This is not just a fight about national solvency. It is a fight about the very foundations of the social order. It is a crusade not merely to put a temporary brake on Socialism, but to stop its onward march once and for all. (Margaret Thatcher)
Advisers advise, Ministers decide! View quote
Margaret Thatcher
Thatcher also gave the following quote a few weeks later : I was brought up by a Victorian grandmother. You were taught to work jolly hard, you were taught to improve yourself, you were taught self-reliance, you were taught to live within your income, you were taught that cleanliness was next to godliness. You were taught self-respect, you were taught always to give a hand to your neighbour, you were taught tremendous pride in your country, you were taught to be a good member of your community. All of these things are Victorian values. [...] They are also perennial values as well. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
We weren't getting a fair deal on the budget and I wasn't going to have it. There's a great strand of equity and fairness in the British people - this is our characteristic. There's not a strand of equity and fairness in Europe - they're out to get as much as they can. That's one of those enormous differences. So I tackled it on that basis. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
Home is where you come to when you've got nothing better to do. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
I shan't be pulling the levers there but I shall be a very good back-seat driver. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
In the Conservative Party we have no truck with outmoded Marxist doctrine about class warfare. For us it is not who you are, who your family is or where you come from that matters, but what you are and what you can do for your country that counts. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
I'm not a good butcher but I've had to learn to carve the joint. People expect a new look. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
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. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
I have made it quite clear that a unified Ireland was one solution that is out. A second solution was a confederation of two states. That is out. A third solution was joint authority. That is out-that is a derogation of sovereignty. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
I had the patriotic conviction that, given great leadership of the sort I heard from Winston Churchill in the radio broadcasts to which we listened, there was almost nothing that the British people could not do. (Margaret Thatcher)
It has been suggested by some people in this country that I and my government will be a "soft touch" in the [European] Community. In case such a rumour may have reached your ears, Mr Chancellor... it is only fair that I should advise you frankly to dismiss it (as my own colleagues did, long ago). We shall judge what British interests are and we shall be resolute in defending them. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
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.'' View quote
Margaret Thatcher
Why do you climb philosophical hills Because they are worth climbing . . . There are no hills to go down unless you start from the top. View quote
Margaret Thatcher
The wisdom of hindsight, so useful to historians and indeed to authors of memoirs, is sadly denied to practicing politicians. View quote
Margaret Thatcher