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No theory of government was ever given a fairer test or a more prolonged experiment in a democratic country than democratic socialism received in Britain. Yet it was a miserable failure in every respect... To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukemia with leeches.

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
Given
Miserable
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Cure
Ever
British
Received
Country
Democratic
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Trying
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Socialism
Leeches
Every
Failure
Britain
Leukemia
Like
Theory
Experiments
Fairer
Respect
Test
Prolonged

More quotes by Margaret Thatcher

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If you are guided by opinion polls, you are not practicing leadership -- you are practicing followership.
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A man may climb Everest for himself, but at the summit he plants his country's flag.
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Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot.
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The choice facing the nation is between two totally different ways of life. And what a prize we have to fight for: no less than the chance to banish from our land the dark, divisive clouds of Marxist socialism and bring together men and women from all walks of life who share a belief in freedom.
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When I'm out of politics I'm going to run a business, it'll be called rent-a-spine
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[On Ronald Reagan:] Poor dear, there's nothing between his ears.
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When you hold back the successful, you penalize those who need help.
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Consensus is the absence of leadership.
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The desire to win is born in most of us. The will to win is a matter of training. The manner of winning is a matter of honour.
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A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us.
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Marxists get up early to further their cause. We must get up even earlier to defend our freedom.
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It used to be about trying to do something. Now it's about trying to be someone.
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If... many influential people have failed to understand, or have just forgotten, what we were up against in the Cold War and how we overcame it, they are not going to be capable of securing, let alone enlarging, the gains that liberty has made.
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Why do you climb philosophical hills? Because they are worth climbing . . . There are no hills to go down unless you start from the top.
Margaret Thatcher
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We do not believe that if you cut back what government does you diminish its authority. On the contrary, a government that did less, and therefore did better, would strengthen its authority.
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We want a society in which we are free to make choices, to make mistakes, to be generous and compassionate. That is what we mean by a moral society - not a society in which the State is responsible for everything, and no one is responsible for the State.
Margaret Thatcher
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John Gummer just did not have the political clout or credibility to rally the troops. I had appointed him as a sort of nightwatchman, but he seemed to have to sleep on the job.
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Ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you tonight in my … chiffon evening gown, my face softly made up, my fair hair gently waved, the Iron Lady of the Western world. Me? A Cold War warrior? … Well, yes — if that is how they wish to interpret my defense of values of freedoms fundamental to our way of life.
Margaret Thatcher
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Freedom will destroy itself if it is not exercised within some sort of moral framework, some body of shared beliefs, some spiritual heritage transmitted through the Church, the family, and the school.
Margaret Thatcher
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For Dicey, writing in 1885, and for me reading him some seventy years later, the rule of law still had a very English, or at least Anglo-Saxon, feel to it. It was later, through Hayek's masterpieces The Constitution of Liberty and Law, Legislation and Liberty that I really came to think this principle as having wider application.
Margaret Thatcher