Margaret Thatcher

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

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

Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus.

To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches.

It pays to know the enemy — not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.

To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.

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.

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

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 got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose.

Being prime minister is a lonely job... you cannot lead from the crowd.

To wear your heart on your sleeve isn't a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.

The spirit of envy can destroy; it can never build.

If you want to cut your own throat, don't come to me for a bandage.

I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air.

Every family should have the right to spend their money, after tax, as they wish, and not as the government dictates. Let us extend choice, extend the will to choose and the chance to choose.

It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.

I don't mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.

No woman in my time will be prime minister or chancellor or foreign secretary — not the top jobs. Anyway, I wouldn't want to be prime minister; you have to give yourself 100 percent.

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