Margaret Thatcher

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

Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.

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.

Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth.

Major international interventions are doomed unless the US is directly or indirectly involved. But if American politicians, officials and servicemen are to be put at risk of arrest and prosecution, the United States will be most reluctant to act in order to curb aggression or prevent genocide. So the effect of the court may well be to diminish, not increase, the numbers of (in the words of the UN Secretary General) 'innocents of distant wars and conflicts'.

Christmas is a day of meaning and traditions, a special day spent in the warm circle of family and friends." ~ (1925- ), English political leader.

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

But because we accept the sanctity of life, the responsibility that comes with freedom and the supreme sacrifice of Christ expressed so well in the hymn: 'When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died. My richest gain I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride.'

Power is like being a lady... if you have to tell people you are, you aren't.

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... 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.

Platitudes? Yes, there are platitudes. Platitudes are there because they are true.

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

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

Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus.

You don't tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.

People think that at the top there isn't much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top.

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

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.

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