Margaret Thatcher
I want to get totally rid of class distinction. As someone put it one of the papers this morning: Marks and Spencer have triumphed over Karl Marx and Engels.Collection: Morning
I've got my teeth into him, and I'm not going to let go.Collection: Letting Go
The messages on our banners in 1979 - freedom, opportunity, family, enterprise, ownership - are now inscribed on the banners in Leipzig, Warsaw, Budapest and even Moscow.Collection: War
I came to office with one deliberate intent: to change Britain from a dependent to a self-reliant society - from a give-it-to-me, to a do-it-yourself nation. A get-up-and-go, instead of a sit-back-and-wait-for-it Britain.Collection: Self
A leader is someone who knows what they want to achieve and can communicate that.Collection: Leader
Socialism lays an bad egg by killing the capitalism that lays the golden eggsCollection: Eggs
Under a Labour government, there's virtually nowhere you can put your savings where they would be safe from the state. ... If you put money in a sock they'd probably nationalize socks.Collection: Government
I like Mr Gorbachev, we can do business together.Collection: Business
If you have a sense of purpose and a sense of direction, I believe people will follow you. Democracy isn't just about deducing what the people want. Democracy is leading the people as well.Collection: Leadership
Every 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.Collection: Strong
When others spoke of the fear of war, you spoke of the need for warriors and peace through strength. When others bewailed the failure of big government to provide for the collective good, you spoke of self-reliance, of personal responsibility, of individual pride and integrity. When others preached compromise - when others demanded compromise, you, Ronald Reagan, preached conviction.Collection: Integrity
When we hear (as we sometimes do) that (Russia's) economic output is about half the level of a decade ago or that real incomes have fallen sharply, it is worth recalling that economic statistics under the Soviet Union were hardly more reliable than any other official statements. Moreover, a country that produces what no one wants to buy, and whose workers receive wages that they cannot use to buy goods they want, is hardly in the best of economic health.Collection: Country
Ideally, when Christians meet, as Christians do, to take counsel together, their purpose is not ( or should not be) to ascertain what is the mind of the majority but what is the mind of the Holy Spirit - something which may be quite different.Collection: Christian
Remember the 'Parable of the Talents' in the New Testament? Christ exhorts us to be the best we can be by developing our skills and abilities, by succeeding in all our tasks and endeavors. What better description can there be of capitalism?Collection: Skills
No Western nation has to build a wall round itself to keep its people in.Collection: Wall
I am not a consensus politician. Im a conviction politician.Collection: Politician
A quick cure is a quack cure.Collection: Healing
Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot.Collection: War
I am an undiluted admirer of American values and the American dream and I believe they will continue to inspire not just the people of the United States but millions across the face of the globe.Collection: Dream
For 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.Collection: Christian
We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty.Collection: Fighting
Wars are not caused by the buildup of weapons. They are caused when an aggressor believes he can achieve his objectives at an acceptable price.Collection: War
If it's me against 48, I feel sorry for the 48.Collection: Sorry
Terrorism thrives on a free society. The terrorist uses the feelings in a free society to sap the will of civilization to resist. If the terrorist succeeds, he has won and the whole of free society has lost.Collection: Civilization
In the background lurks the scourge of international terrorism. There are people exercising power in a few countries and leading political factions in others who seem to be moved by narrow, brutal and irrational impulses. Their view of their own self-interest is so blinkered as to leave no space for purely human values, for peaceful negotiation or for economic advancement. They are bent on the destruction of the established order and of civilised ways of doing business. They must never be allowed to succeed.Collection: Country
That is what capitalism is: a system that brings wealth to the many, not just the few.Collection: Wealth
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.Collection: Country
The wisdom of hindsight, so useful to historians and indeed to authors of memoirs, is sadly denied to practicing politicians.Collection: History
All corporatism - even when practised in societies where hard work, enterprise and cooperation are as highly valued as in Korea - encourages inflexibility, discourages individual accountability, and risks magnifying errors by concealing them.Collection: Hard Work
The desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom.Collection: Desire
I do believe that political arrangements which are based upon violence, intimidation and theft will eventually break down - and will deserve to do so.Collection: Believe
It is always important in matters of high politics to know what you do not know. Those who think they know, but are mistaken, and act upon their mistakes, are the most dangerous people to have in charge.Collection: Mistake
Defeat? I do not recognize the meaning of the word.Collection: Powerful
We speak of peace, yes, but whose peace? Poland's? Bulgaria's? The peace of the grave?Collection: War
From my experience let me say this: in today's world it is no bad thing for a politician to have had the benefit of a scientific background. And not only politicians. Those who work in industry, in commerce, in investment. Indeed, so important has it become that I believe we are right to make science a compulsory subject for all schoolchildren.Collection: Believe
The right-of-centre parties still often compete with left-of-centre ones to proclaim their attachment to all the main programmes of spending, particularly spending on social services of one kind or another. But this foolish as well as muddled. It is foolish because left-of-centre parties will always be able to outbid right-of-centre ones in this auction - after all, that is why they are on the left in the first place. The muddle arises because once we concede that public spending and taxation are than a necessary evil we have lost sight of the core values of freedom.Collection: Party
I still want to play in it, maybe when I absolutely think I have no chance of playing in it my view might change but I doubt it because it just doesn't interest me.Collection: Change
I am not hard - I'm frightfully soft. But I will not be houndedCollection: Hard
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.Collection: Country
I 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.Collection: Europe
When will Labour learn that you cannot build Jerusalem in Brussels.Collection: Europe
A world without nuclear weapons may be a dream but you cannot base a sure defence on dreams. Without far greater trust and confidence between East and West than exists at present, a world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us.Collection: Dream
If a woman like Eva Peron with no ideals can get that far, think how far I can go with the ideals that I have.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Two
When all the objectives of government include the achievement of equality - other than equality before the law - that government poses a threat to liberty.Collection: Government
To the extent that the West is to blame at all for the ills of the Third World it is to the extent that the West created Marx and his successors, among whom must be numbered many of those who advised the Third World leaders in post-war years.Collection: War
The 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.Collection: Hate
In the same period that the Americans have lived under one constitution our French friends notched up five. A Punch cartoon has a 19th century Englishman asking a librarian for a copy of the French constitution, only to be told: 'I am sorry Sir, we do not stock periodicals.'Collection: Sorry
When in August 1793 a British delegation showed their hosts a terrestrial globe, it turned into a diplomatic incident, for the Chinese were furious to see that their empire covered so little of it. For centuries the Chinese had thought of themselves as 'The Middle Kingdom', that is the centre of the civilized world. To see otherwise was a shock.Collection: August