Margaret Thatcher
I don't mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.
We were told our campaign wasn't sufficiently slick. We regard that as a compliment.
It pays to know the enemy - not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.
You don't tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.
Ought we not to ask the media to agree among themselves a voluntary code of conduct, under which they would not say or show anything which could assist the terrorists' morale or their cause while the hijack lasted.
Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus.
Being prime minister is a lonely job... you cannot lead from the crowd.
Platitudes? Yes, there are platitudes. Platitudes are there because they are true.
Let us never forget this fundamental truth: the State has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves. If the State wishes to spend more it can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more. It is no good thinking that someone else will pay - that 'someone else' is you. There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers' money.Collection: Thinking
If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.Collection: Inspirational
Watch your thoughts for they become words. Watch your words for they become actions. Watch your actions for they become habits. Watch your habits for they become your character. And watch your character for it becomes your destiny. What we think, we become. My father always said that... and I think I am fine.Collection: Inspirational
If you set out to be liked, you will accomplish nothing.Collection: Accomplish Nothing
Socialists cry “Power to the people”, and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean - power over people, power to the State.Collection: Mean
Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas.Collection: Motivational
Don't follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.Collection: Leadership
The government has no money of its own. It's all your money.Collection: Government
People constantly requesting government intervention are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's 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 after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.Collection: Men
It is not the business of politicians to please everyone.Collection: Political
If your only opportunity is to be equal then it is not opportunity.Collection: Opportunity
There are too many people who imagine that there is something sophisticated about always believing the best of those who hate your country, and the worst of those who defend it.Collection: Country
I'm happy as a dog with two dicksCollection: Dog
Never flinch. Make up your own mind and do it.Collection: Mind
Left-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.Collection: Mean
Let us never forget this fundamental truth: The State has no source of money other than the money people themselves earn.Collection: People
Freedom will destroy itself if it is not exercised within some sort of moral framework, some body of shared beliefs, some spiritual heritage transmitted through the Church, the family, and the school.Collection: Spiritual
I started out in life with two great advantages: No money and good parents.Collection: Two
The first step in calculating which way to go is to find out where you are.Collection: Leadership
No great goal was ever easily achieved.Collection: Goal
When I'm out of politics I'm going to run a business, it'll be called rent-a-spineCollection: Running
I can't help to spit nails when just thinking about Trade UnionsCollection: Thinking
...Conservatives have excellent credentials to speak about human rights. By our efforts, and with precious little help from self-styled liberals, we were largely responsible for securing liberty for a substantial share of the world's population and defending it for most of the rest.Collection: Rights
Our children need strong families raising them with sturdy virtues, not to be smothered in the cold arms of the state.Collection: Strong
The choice facing the nation is between two totally different ways of life. And what a prize we have to fight for: no less than the chance to banish from our land the dark, divisive clouds of Marxist socialism and bring together men and women from all walks of life who share a belief in freedom.Collection: Dark
We who are living in the west today are fortunate. Freedom has been bequeathed to us. We have not had to carve it out of nothing; we have not had to pay for it with our lives. But it would be a grave mistake to think that freedom requires nothing of us. Each of us has to earn freedom anew in order to possess it. We do so not just for our own sake, but for the sake of our children, so that they may build a better future that will sustain over the world the responsibilities and blessings of freedom.Collection: Children
Most women defend themselves. It is the female of the species-it is the tigress and lioness in you which tends to defend when attacked.Collection: Witty
Constitutions have to be written on hearts, not just paper.Collection: Heart
Nevertheless, the Tenth Commandment-'Thou shalt not covet'-recognizes that making money and owning things could become selfish activities. But it is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but love of money for its own sake. The spiritual dimension comes in deciding what one does with the wealth. How could we respond to the many calls for help, or invest for the future, or support the wonderful artists or craftsmen whose work also glorifies God, unless we had first worked hard and used our talents to create the necessary wealth?Collection: Spiritual
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.Collection: Ambition
Socialism's results have ranged between the merely shabby and the truly catastrophic - poverty, strife, oppression and, on the killing fields of communism, the deaths this century of perhaps 100 million people. Against that doctrine was set a contrary, conservative belief in a law-governed liberty. It was this view which triumphed with the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. Since then, the Left has sought rehabilitation by distancing itself from its past.Collection: Wall
If 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.Collection: Believe
Yet the basic fact remains: every regulation represents a restriction of liberty, every regulation has a cost. That is why, like marriage (in the Prayer Book's words), regulation should not "be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly"Collection: Prayer
To 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.Collection: Powerful
I will not change just to court popularity.Collection: Popularity
When you've spent half your political life dealing with humdrum issues like the environment, it's exciting to have a real crisis on your hands.Collection: Real
No generation has a free hold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy-with a full repairing lease.Collection: Generations
Do you think you would ever have heard of Christianity if the Apostles had gone out and said, ‘I believe in consensus?’Collection: Believe
First you win the argument, then you win the vote.Collection: Winning
There are always dangers about. Therefore you must always keep your defences strong.Collection: Strong
The United States is contributing massively to the defence of Europe and we should be very grateful.Collection: Grateful