Object to merit and distinction, and you're setting your face against quality, independence, originality, genius against all the richness and variety of life. When you hold back the successful, you penalize those who need help.

It used to be about trying to do something. Now it's about trying to be someone.

[When asked how it felt to be a female prime minister:] I don't know: I've never experienced the alternative.

Whether it is in the United States or in mainland Europe, written constitutions have one great weakness. That is that they contain the potential to have judges take decisions which should properly be made by democratically elected politicians.

We will stand on principle or we will not stand at all.

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.

When I'm out of politics I'm going to run a business, it'll be called rent-a-spine