Margaret Thatcher Quotes
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I'm absolutely amazed when some people say I am either hard or uncaring, because it's so utterly untrue. I can't say it because, if you say you are caring, it's like saying, ‘I'm a very modest person.’ Nobody believes you.
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Seven years ago, who would have dared forecast such a transformation of Britain. This didn't come about because of consensus. It happened because we said: this we believe, this we will do. It's called leadership.
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We were the first country to attempt and to succeed in rolling back the frontiers of socialism, which is the first cousin to communism.
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I should therefore prefer to restrict my guidelines to the following:
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There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people 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 each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.
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They don't patronize me for being a woman. Nobody puts me down.
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I am a great admirer of Professor Hayek. Some of his books are absolutely supreme-'The Constitution of Liberty' and the three volumes on 'Law, Legislation and Liberty'-and would be well read by almost every hon. Member.
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Our policy is not built on envy or hatred, but on liberty for the individual man or woman.
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We've beaten the Germans twice and now they're back!
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It seems like cloud cuckoo land... If anyone is suggesting that I would go to Parliament and suggest the abolition of the pound sterling – no! … We have made it quite clear that we will not have a single currency imposed on us.
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I fight on, I fight to win.
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In this country over the last five years pay has doubled, whereas output has slightly fallen. That is totally different from the position with many of our competitors. Pay in those countries has gone up hand in hand with productivity. Consequently, they have the jobs and we have a larger proportion of the unemployment.
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Successful entrepreneurship is ultimately a matter of flair. But there is also a fund of practical knowledge to be acquired and, of course, the right legal and financial framework has to be provided for productive enterprise to develop.
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I can't help reflecting that it's taken a Government headed by a housewife with experience of running a family to balance the books for the first time in twenty years-with a little left over for a rainy day.
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If the past is any guide, what has happened this winter could happen again next winter and the winter after that and so on and so on. What we face is a threat to our whole way of life...The case is now surely overwhelming, there will be no solution to our difficulties which does not include some restriction on the power of the unions.
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It is a great night. It is the end of Socialism.
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I'm the world's greatest fan of your President Ronald Reagan, as you know. I think he's done terrific things and I think that in his recent speech, the keynote that he struck, that America is a confident leader of the free world, is the right one and I'm absolutely delighted at the way in which confidence had returned to the United States.
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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.
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The spirit of the South Atlantic was the spirit of Britain at her best. It has been said that we surprised the world, that British patriotism was rediscovered in those spring days. Mr. President, it was never really lost.
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I love argument, I love debate. I don’t expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that’s not their job.
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Let me make one thing absolutely clear. The National Health Service is safe with us.
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Each demand for security, whether of employment, income or social position, implied the exclusion from such benefits of those outside the particular privileged group - and would generate demands for countervailing privileges from the excluded groups. Eventually, in such a situation every will lose.
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Our aim is not just to remove our uniquely incompetent Government from office-it is to destroy the socialist fallacies-indeed the whole fallacy of socialism-that the Labour Party exists to spread.
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The star of that year's conference was undoubtedly the Swedish conservative leader—since Prime Minister—who delivered a speech of such startling Thatcherite soundness that in applauding I felt as if I was giving myself a standing ovation.