Quotes from Margaret Thatcher

When you stop a dictator, there are always risks. But there are greater risks in not stopping a dictator.

It may be the cock that crows, but it is the hen that lays the eggs.

One only gets to the top rung of the ladder by steadily climbing up one at a time, and suddenly all sorts of powers, all sorts of abilities which you thought never belonged to you- suddenly become within your own possibility and you think, "Well, I'll have a go, too."

If it's me against 48, I feel sorry for the 48.

I 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.

If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.

The wisdom of hindsight, so useful to historians and indeed to authors of memoirs, is sadly denied to practicing politicians.

Pennies do not come from heaven- they have to be earned here on earth.

A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.

A man may climb Everest for himself, but at the summit he plants his country's flag.

We Conservatives hate unemployment.

There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.

Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose.

What Britain needs is an iron lady.

There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.

I've got a woman's ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it.

The battle for women's rights has been largely won.

Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus.

I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.

I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it.

Do what you know is right & importance, it is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, & personal satisfaction.

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it.

Christmas is a day of meaning and traditions, a special day spent in the warm circle of family and friends.

It's passionately interesting for me that the things that I learned in a small town, in a very modest home, are just the things that I believe have won the election.