Our Favorite Margaret Thatcher Quotes

But first, a word from Robert Heinlein;

"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. 

This is known as “bad luck.”
 
And having a leader like Margaret Thatcher is known as "a great blessing".

"I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph."

Some of our favorite Iron Lady aphorisms and observations:

"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.”

"...I always feel ten years younger – despite the jet-lag – when I set foot on American soil: there is something so positive, generous, and open about the people – and everything actually works. I also feel, though, that I have in a sense a share of America."

"Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy."

“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.”

"Let me give you my vision: A man’s right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as servant and not as master.”

"I never hugged him, I bombed him." -- on Muammar Gaddafi

"I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air."

"...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."

“Socialists have always spent much of their time seeking new titles for their beliefs, because the old versions so quickly become outdated and discredited.”

"To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects."

“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.”

“Don't follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.”

“Let us never forget this fundamental truth:  The State has no source of money other than the money people themselves earn.”

 

"In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”  

"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.”

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

“No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.”  

“Watch your thoughts, for they will become actions. Watch your actions, for they'll become... habits. Watch your habits for they will forge your character. Watch your character, for it will make your destiny.”  

“The facts of life are conservative”

(Upon England loss to Germany in the 1990 FIFA World Cup Semi-final)
Kenneth Clarke: "Isn't it terrible about losing to the Germans at our national sport?"
Margaret Thatcher: "They might have beaten us at our national sport, but we managed to beat them at their national sport twice in the 20th century."

“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.”

“There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.”

“They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is 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 to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour.”

"Communist regimes were not some unfortunate aberration, some historical deviation from a socialist ideal. They were the ultimate expression, unconstrained by democratic and electoral pressures, of what socialism is all about. … In short, the state [is] everything and the individual nothing.”

“Of course it’s the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.”

“I owe nothing to Women’s Lib.”

"People think that at the top there isn't much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top."

“Pennies don’t fall from heaven, they have to be earned here on earth."

“Good Conservatives always pay their bills. And on time. Not like the Socialists who run up other people’s bills.”

“It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.”

 

“Many of our troubles are due to the fact that our people turn to politicians for everything.”

"If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you."

"Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides."

“There is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation.”

 

“When all the objectives of government include the achievement of equality – other than equality before the law – that government poses a threat to liberty.”

 

“Marxists get up early to further their cause. We must get up even earlier to defend our freedom.”

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."

“Constitutions have to be written on hearts, not just paper.”

 

"My job is to stop Britain from going Red.” ....................................................

 

She did her job in her time and we're the better for it. Which is why no one from this petty leftist administration was at the Lady's funeral. They were too busy mourning at Hugo Chavez' funeral. Just as well--they're small and unworthy anyway.

 

Sec. Schulz and Sec. Baker ably conveyed the love and admiration of our nation for the Lady.

Sir Winston's job was to stop Nazism.
Lady Thatcher's job was to stop Communism. 

The job of British leaders today must be to stop Islamism, another radical foreign collectivist and supremacist ideology.