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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. These are the British inheritance. They are the essence of a free country, and on that freedom all of our other freedoms depend.

Margaret Thatcher

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Margaret Thatcher
Age: 87 †
Born: 1925
Born: October 13
Died: 2013
Died: April 8
Autobiographer
Barrister
Business Executive
Chemist
Former Prime Minister Of The United Kingdom
Politician
Scientist
Statesperson
Baroness Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher
Margaret Roberts
Maggie Thatcher
Baroness Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Roberts
Lady Thatcher
Mrs. Thatcher
Mrs. T
Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven
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Earns
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Masters
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Country
Spend
Inheritance
Right
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Servant
Work
State
Master
Men
Freedom
British
Free
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More quotes by Margaret Thatcher

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Whether at home or abroad, the task of statesman is to work with human nature warts and all, and to draw on instincts and even prejudices that can be turned to good purpose. It is never to try to recreate Mankind in a new image.
Margaret Thatcher
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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.
Margaret Thatcher
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To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches.
Margaret Thatcher
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[On Ronald Reagan:] Poor dear, there's nothing between his ears.
Margaret Thatcher
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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.
Margaret Thatcher
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You can't lead from the crowd.
Margaret Thatcher
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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.
Margaret Thatcher
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Communism produces neither dignity nor prosperity. It takes all power away from the people and places it in the hands of a self-appointed elite. And because it distorts and manipulates the distinctive talents of individuals rather than letting those talents flourish, it prevents progress and prosperity.
Margaret Thatcher
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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.
Margaret Thatcher
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There might be new technology, but technological progress itself was nothing new - and over the years it had not destroyed jobs, but created them.
Margaret Thatcher
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In those days one advantage of being a woman was that there was a basic courtesy towards us on which we could draw - something which today's feminists have largely dissipated.
Margaret Thatcher
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Constitutions have to be written on hearts, not just paper.
Margaret Thatcher
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Object to merit and distinction, and you're setting your face against quality, independence, originality, genius against all the richness and variety of life. When you hold back the successful, you penalize those who need help.
Margaret Thatcher
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(On The International Criminal Court) For the victors of the Cold War to submit to an unelected, unaccountable, and almost certainly hostile body such as that envisaged would be the ultimate irony.
Margaret Thatcher
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We should not underestimate the enormity of the task which lies ahead. But little can be achieved without sound money. It is the bedrock of sound government.
Margaret Thatcher
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Hope is no basis for a defense policy.
Margaret Thatcher
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If your only opportunity is to be equal then it is not opportunity.
Margaret Thatcher
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You and I come by road or rail, but economists travel on infrastructure.
Margaret Thatcher
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Don't follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.
Margaret Thatcher
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(A unified) 'Europe' is the result of plans. It is, in fact, a classic utopian project, a monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure: only the scale of the final damage done is in doubt.
Margaret Thatcher