“Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.”

“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.”

“If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.”

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

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

“I’ve got a woman’s ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it.”

“You and I come by road or rail, but economists travel on infrastructure.”

“Any leader has to have a certain amount of steel in them, so I am not that put out being called the Iron Lady.”

“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”

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

“The truths of the Judaic-Christian tradition, are infinitely precious, not only, as I believe, because they are true, but also because they provide the moral impulse which alone can lead to that peace, in the true meaning of the word, for which we all long. . . . There is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves.”

“The facts of life are conservative.”

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

“Of course it’s the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.”

“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.”

“Left-wing zealots have often been prepared to ride roughshod over due process and basic considerations of fairness when they think they can get away with it. For them the ends always seems to justify the means. That is precisely how their predecessors came to create the gulag.”

“Of course, to be a mother and a housewife is a vocation of a very high kind. But I simply felt that it was not the whole of my vocation. I knew that I also wanted a career. A phrase that Irene Ward, MP for Tynemouth, and I often used was that ‘while the home must always be the centre of one’s life, it should not be the boundary of one’s ambitions’.”

“Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan.”

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

“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.”

“There are still people in my party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors… I mean it.”

“It’s passionately interesting for me that the things that I learned in a small town, in a very modest home, are just the things that I believe have won the election.”

“When people are free to choose, they choose freedom.”

“I’m back… and you knew I was coming. On my way here I passed a cinema with the sign ‘The Mummy Returns’.”

“You don’t tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.”

“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 a day you’ve had everything to do and you’ve done it.”

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

“Power is like being a lady… if you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”

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

“Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas.”

“To those waiting with bated breath for that favorite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only this to say, ‘You turn if you want; the lady’s not for turning.”

“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.”

“No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; he had money as well.”

“Christmas is a day of meaning and traditions, a special day spent in the warm circle of family and friends.”

“Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.”

“There are significant differences between the American and European version of capitalism. The American traditionally 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.”

“It’s a funny old world.”

“What Britain needs is an iron lady.”

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

“I love argument, I love debate. I don’t expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that’s not their job.”

“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.”

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

“If you just set out to be liked, you will be prepared to compromise on anything at anytime, and would achieve nothing.”

“For every idealistic peacemaker willing to renounce his self-defence in favour of a weapons-free world, there is at least one warmaker anxious to exploit the other’s good intentions.”

“A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us.”

“Watch your thoughts, for they will become actions. Watch your actions, for they’ll become… habits. Watch your habits for they will forge your character. Watch your character, for it will make your destiny.”

“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.”

“Some Socialists seem to believe that people should be numbers in a State computer. We believe they should be individuals. We are all unequal. No one, thank heavens, is like anyone else, however much the Socialists may pretend otherwise. We believe that everyone has the right to be unequal but to us every human being is equally important.”

“It used to be about trying to do something. Now it’s about trying to be someone.”

“They’ve got the usual Socialist disease — they’ve run out of other people’s money.”