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Margaret Thatcher
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“I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it. ”
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“One of the things being in politics has taught me is that men are not a reasoned or reasonable sex.”
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“I owe nothing to women's lib.”
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“It will be years — and not in my time — before a woman will lead the party or become Prime Minister.”
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“ Never in the history of human credit has so much been owed. ”
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“ I never came to this through driving personal ambition. A combined opportunity and duty presented itself and I took it.”
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“I've got woman's ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it.”
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“Freedom under the law must never be taken for granted.”
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“Let our children grow tall, and some taller than others if they have it in them to do so.”
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“You don't tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.”
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“We need a free economy not only for the renewed material prosperity it will bring, but because it is indispensable to individual freedom, human dignity and to a more just, more honest society.”
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“We want a society where people are free to make choices, to make mistakes, to be generous and compassionate. This is what we mean by a moral society; not a society where the state is responsible for everything, and no one is responsible for the state.”
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“It is not the business of politicians to please everyone. ”
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“ Of course, it's the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.”
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“I will not stagger from expedient to expedient.”
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“When you stop a dictator there are always risks. But there are greater risks in not stopping a dictator.”
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“Peace is hard work and we must not allow people to forget it.”
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“If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.”
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“I wouldn't be worth my salt if I weren't attracting some controversy and criticism. Everyone in the world who has done something in life has attracted criticism.”
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“Yes. It's all very simple. I want you to abolish economists ... Yes, all of them. They never agree on anything. They just fill the heads of politicians with all sorts of curious notions, like the more you spend, the richer you get.”
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“Platitudes? Yes, there are platitudes. Platitudes are there because they are true.”
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“Young people ought not to be idle. It is very bad for them.”
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“ You and I come by road or rail, but economists travel on infrastructure.”
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“ We must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.”
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“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.”
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“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.”
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“No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well.”
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“What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you have to got have hard work and a certain sense of purpose.”
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“ How thin is the crust of order over the fires of human appetite and the lust for naked power.”
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“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.”
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“A world without nuclear weapons may be a dream but you cannot base a sure defense 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.”
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“ I don't mind how much my ministers talk — as long as they do what I say.”
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“There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.”
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“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.”
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“ Advisers advise, and ministers decide.”
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“ The cocks may crow, but it's the hen that lays the egg.”
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“I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.”
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“It is exciting to have a real crisis on your hands, when you have spent half your political life dealing with humdrum issues like the environment.”
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“Home is where you come to when you've got nothing better to do.”
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“It pays to know the enemy — not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.”
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“ [When asked how it felt to be a female prime minister:] I don't know: I've never experienced the alternative.”
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“ The lady's not for turning.”
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“ 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 ... ”
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“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.”
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“Political success is a good deal pleasanter than political failure, but it too brings its problems.”
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“Personal abuse is no substitute for policy. It signals panic.”
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“The wisdom of hindsight, so useful to historians and indeed to authors of memoirs, is sadly denied to practicing politicians.”
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“ Putting the World to Rights.”
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“Remember, George, this is no time to go wobbly.”
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“In my view dictators do not surrender. They have to be well and truly defeated.”
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“I am not a consensus politician. I am a conviction politician.”
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“I have never knowingly made a non-controversial speech in my life.”
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“A quick cure is a quack cure.”
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“There are too few rich and too few profits.”
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“We have become a Grandmother.”
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“[On being asked how many Mrs. Thatchers there were:] Oh, three at least. There is the intellectual one, the intuitive one and the one at home.”
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“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.”
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“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money. ”
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“... when a big man has a big idea I never like to stand in his way.”
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“Oh, Mother. Mother was marvelous — she helped Father.”
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“Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.”
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“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.”
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“ If you are guided by opinion polls, you are not practicing leadership — you are practicing followership.”
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“ Never flinch. Make up your own mind and do it.”
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“All power is trust.”
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“A leader is someone who knows what they want to achieve and can communicate that.”
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“ You will only succeed if you know that what you are doing is right and you know how to bring out the best in people.”
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“[On Ronald Reagan:] Poor dear, there's nothing between his ears.”
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“[On George H.W. Bush:] By 1990 I had learned that I had to defer to him in conversation and not to stint the praise. If that was what was necessary to secure Britain's interests and influence, I had no hesitation in eating a little humble pie.”
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“To wear your heart on your sleeve isn't a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.”
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“One only gets to the top rung on the ladder by steadily climbing up one at a time, and suddenly all sorts of powers, all sort 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.' ”
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“Consensus is the negation of leadership.”
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“Once a woman is made man's equal, she becomes his superior.”
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“Inflation is the parent of unemployment and the unseen robber of those who have saved.”
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“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”
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“Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by traffic from both sides.”
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“I don't think any woman in power really has a happy life unless she's got a large number of women friends ... because you sometimes must go and sit down and let down your hair with someone you can trust totally.”
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“It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.”
Margaret Thatcher, English politician, former prime minister
(1925 - 2013)
Full name: Margaret Hilda Roberts Thatcher; also, Baroness Thatcher or Margaret, Lady Thatcher, Baroness of Kesteven.