669 Quotes by Margaret Thatcher

I'm also very much aware that it is you who brought democracy to Chile, you set up a constitution suitable for democracy, you put it into effect, elections were held, and then, in accordance with the result, you stepped down.

There are significant differences between the American and European version of capitalism. The American traditiionally emphasizes the need for limited government, light regulations, low taxes and maximum labour-market flexibility. Its success has been shown above all in the ability to create new jobs, in which it is consistently more successful than Europe.

I call the Conservative Party now to a crusade. Not only the Conservative Party. I appeal to all those men and women of good will who do not want a Marxist future for themselves or their children or their children's children. For this is not just a fight about national solvency. It is a fight about the very foundations of the social order. It is a crusade not merely to put a temporary block on socialism but to stop its onward march once and for all.

I will not change just to court popularity.

People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture.

If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn't swim.

Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' is not above sudden, disturbing, movements. Since its inception, capitalism has known slumps and recessions, bubble and froth; no one has yet dis-invented the business cycle, and probably no one will; and what Schumpeter famously called the 'gales of creative destruction' still roar mightily from time to time. To lament these things is ultimately to lament the bracing blast of freedom itself.

While the Soviet Union has imposed its rule on its neighbours and drawn an iron curtain between east and west, we in Great Britain have given freedom and independence to more than forty-eight countries whose populations now number more than a thousand million - a quarter of the world's total.

Leadership is about having principles. A leader must have a vision and principles that will endure for all time and must always be true to these principles, applying them to changing circumstances