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.
Margaret ThatcherLeft-wing zealots have often been prepared to ride roughshod over due process and basic considerations of fairness when they think they can get away with it. For them the ends always seems to justify the means. That is precisely how their predecessors came to create the gulag.
Margaret ThatcherI was asked whether I was trying to restore Victorian values. I said straight out I was. And I am.
Margaret ThatcherWe are not prepared to consider special category status for certain groups of people serving sentences for crime. Crime is crime is crime, it is not political
Margaret ThatcherA man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.
Margaret ThatcherWhen I'm out of politics I'm going to run a business, it'll be called rent-a-spine
Margaret Thatcher(Not) even the US can impose peace: it has to be genuinely accepted by both parties involved.
Margaret ThatcherIt must be a conviction Government. As Prime Minister I could not waste time having internal arguments.
Margaret ThatcherI do not understand the unilateralists. If they hated nuclear weapons as much as I do they would want them down in the world as a whole. I am the true disarmer, I keep peace and freedom and justice with it.
Margaret ThatcherI was turned out because I said to Europe no, no, no. That no, no , no has now turned into yes, yes. Two yes's not three because he got the Social Chapter out and he's reserved his position on the single currency.
Margaret ThatcherI exercise my right as a free citizen to spend my own money in my own way, so that I can go on the day, the time, to the doctor I choose and get out fast.
Margaret ThatcherEurope is... a monument to the vanity of individuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure.
Margaret ThatcherThere is no such thing as society, there is a living tapestry of men and women and the beauty of that tapestry, and the quality of our lives, will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and to turn round and help, by our own efforts, those who are unfortunate. There's no such thing as entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation
Margaret ThatcherThe messages on our banners in 1979 - freedom, opportunity, family, enterprise, ownership - are now inscribed on the banners in Leipzig, Warsaw, Budapest and even Moscow.
Margaret ThatcherThe acid test of politics is not what you say at the hustings, but what you actually do in government.
Margaret ThatcherTo those waiting with bated breath for that favorite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only this to say, ‘You turn if you want; the lady’s not for turning.
Margaret ThatcherI hope we shall see more ande more women combining marriage and a career. Prejudice against this dual role is not confined to men. I regret to say, it comes from our own sex.
Margaret ThatcherIf a Tory does not believe that private property is one of the main bulwarks of individual freedom, then he had better become a socialist and have done with it.
Margaret ThatcherThe battle for women's rights has largely been won. The days when they were demanded and discussed in strident tones should be gone forever. I hate those strident tones we hear from some Women's Libbers.
Margaret ThatcherThere are forces more powerful and pervasive than the apparatus of war. You may chain a man, but you cannot chain his mind. You may enslave him, but you will not conquer his spirit. In every decade since the war Soviet leaders have been reminded that their pitiless ideology only survives because it is maintained by force. But the day will come when the anger and frustration of the people is so great that force cannot contain it. Then the edifice cracks; the mortar crumbles; one day, liberty will dawn on the other side of the wall.
Margaret ThatcherEvery Conservative desires peace. The threat to peace comes from Communism which has powerful forces ready to attack anywhere. Communism waits for weakness, it leaves strength alone. Britain must therefore be strong, strong in her arms, strong in her faith, strong in her own way of life.
Margaret ThatcherFor the Christian there can be no social or political panaceas, no easy escapes from personal responsibility achieved by collectivising guilt or virtue. The true ends of temporal life lie beyond it, and, though the tyrannical State may diminish virtue, the benevolent State cannot procure it.
Margaret ThatcherI 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 ThatcherLaw and order is a social service. Crime and the fear which the threat of crime induces can paralyse whole communities, keep lonely and vulnerable elderly people shut up in their homes, scar young lives and raise to cult status the swaggering violent bully who achieves predatory control over the streets. I suspect that there would be more support and less criticism than today's political leaders imagine for a large shift of resources from Social Security benefits to law and order - as long as rhetoric about getting tough on crime was matched by practice.
Margaret ThatcherWhether manufactured by black, white, brown or yellow hands, a widget remains a widget – and it will be bought anywhere if the price and quality are right. The market is a more powerful and more reliable liberating force than government can ever be.
Margaret ThatcherA world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us.
Margaret ThatcherTo me consensus seems to be - the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no-one believes, but to which no-one objects.
Margaret ThatcherIndividualism has come in for an enormous amount of criticism over the years. It still does. It is widely assumed to be synonymous with selfishness...But the main reason why so many people in power have always disliked individualism is because it is individualists who are ever keenest to prevent the abuse of authority.
Margaret ThatcherWhether 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.
Margaret Thatcher