Margaret Thatcher

When all the objectives of government include the achievement of equality - other than equality before the law - that government poses a threat to liberty.

To the extent that the West is to blame at all for the ills of the Third World it is to the extent that the West created Marx and his successors, among whom must be numbered many of those who advised the Third World leaders in post-war years.

Socialists have always spent much of their time seeking new titles for their beliefs, because the old versions so quickly become outdated and discredited.

Countries trade with each other - or to be more precise people buy and sell from each other across frontiers - because that is the way to advance their interests. We do not need to beg people to trade with us - as long as we have something that people want, of a quality they expect and at a price they are prepared to pay.

The European single currency is bound to fail, economically, politically and indeed socially, though the timing, occasion and full consequences are all necessarily still unclear.

Rogue states never turn out to be quite the pariahs they are deemed. They are only able to cause, or at least threaten to cause, mayhem because they enjoy the covert support - usually by means of technology transfers - of one or more major powers within the charmed circle of global 'good guys'.

When we hear (as we sometimes do) that (Russia's) economic output is about half the level of a decade ago or that real incomes have fallen sharply, it is worth recalling that economic statistics under the Soviet Union were hardly more reliable than any other official statements. Moreover, a country that produces what no one wants to buy, and whose workers receive wages that they cannot use to buy goods they want, is hardly in the best of economic health.

The West as a whole in the early 1990s become obsessed with a 'peace dividend' that would be spent over and over again on any number of soft-hearted and sometimes soft-headed causes. Politicians forget that the only real peace dividend is peace.

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.

Do you think you would ever have heard of Christianity if the Apostles had gone out and said, ‘I believe in consensus?’

Home is where you come to when you've got nothing better to do.

We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty.

Europe will never be like America. Europe is a product of history. America is a product of philosophy.

It is one of the great weaknesses of reasonable men and women that they imagine that projects which fly in the face of commonsense are not serious or being seriously undertaken.

There is much to be said for trying to improve some disadvantaged people’s lot. There is nothing to be said for trying to create heaven on earth.

During my lifetime most of the problems the world has faced have come, in one fashion or another, from mainland Europe and the solution from outside it.

It is always important in matters of high politics to know what you do not know. Those who think they know, but are mistaken, and act upon their mistakes, are the most dangerous people to have in charge.

It is not the business of politicians to please everyone.

We are not in politics to ignore peoples' worries, we are in politics to deal with them.

Economics are the method; the object is to change the soul.

Consensus is the negation of leadership.