Margaret Thatcher Quotes About War

• Isn't a policy of conventional weapons, with the terrible bombs raining down, with the missiles, with the aircraft, with the submarines, with the torpedoes, with the tanks, with chemical weapons - isn't that based on the possibility of threat?

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  4815

• There are forces more powerful and pervasive than the apparatus of war. You may chain a man, but you cannot chain his mind. You may enslave him, but you will not conquer his spirit. In every decade since the war Soviet leaders have been reminded that their pitiless ideology only survives because it is maintained by force. But the day will come when the anger and frustration of the people is so great that force cannot contain it. Then the edifice cracks; the mortar crumbles; one day, liberty will dawn on the other side of the wall.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  4315

• Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  First Clare Booth Luce Lecture, www.margaretthatcher.org. September 23, 1991.

  2913

• When others spoke of the fear of war, you spoke of the need for warriors and peace through strength. When others bewailed the failure of big government to provide for the collective good, you spoke of self-reliance, of personal responsibility, of individual pride and integrity. When others preached compromise - when others demanded compromise, you, Ronald Reagan, preached conviction.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  Responsibility  

  4455

• We're saying to anyone who dares to attack us, Do not do it, you couldn't win, the result would be devastating! I think you're saying the same.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  2829

• The Iraqis had paid a terrible price for Saddam's folly (in the Gulf War). But looking at the devastation they left behind (in Kuwait), my sympathy was limited.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  3114

• We speak of peace, yes, but whose peace? Poland's? Bulgaria's? The peace of the grave?

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  5031

• The messages on our banners in 1979 - freedom, opportunity, family, enterprise, ownership - are now inscribed on the banners in Leipzig, Warsaw, Budapest and even Moscow.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  Margaret Thatcher, Iain Dale (1997). “As I said to Denis--: the Margaret Thatcher book of quotations”, Robson Book Ltd

  4397

• 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.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  3465

• (On The International Criminal Court) "For the victors of the Cold War to submit to an unelected, unaccountable, and almost certainly hostile body such as that envisaged would be the ultimate irony."

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  1609

• It is important not to allow ever wider coalition-building to become an end in itself. As we saw in the Gulf War of 1990, international pressures, particularly those exerted from within an alliance, can result in the failure to follow actions through and so leave future problems unresolved.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  3381

• Their pitiless ideology only survives because it is maintained by force. But the day comes when the anger and frustration of the people is so great that force cannot contain it. Then the edifice cracks: the mortar crumbles.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  Margaret Thatcher, Iain Dale (1997). “As I said to Denis--: the Margaret Thatcher book of quotations”, Robson Book Ltd

  644

• Wars are not caused by the buildup of weapons. They are caused when an aggressor believes he can achieve his objectives at an acceptable price.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  Address to a Joint Session of Congress, delivered 20 February 1985

  3653

• I think our support for the EEC has been very half-hearted. You really cannot join any group of nations and spend all your time criticising it. The EEC is free Europe getting together. Had we had some vision like that after the first world war , we might never had the second ... my son does not have to go and fight as his father had to fight. Surely that is the most valuable thing of all, the reason for keeping Europe together.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  "In her own words" by Julian Glover, www.theguardian.com. March 22, 2002.

  4411

• If we are safe today, it is because America has stood with us. If we are to remain safe tomorrow, it will be because America remains powerful and self-confident. When, therefore, the Americans face difficulties, we need to say to them more clearly: We are with you.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  2249

• It is absolutely right that President Reagan considers SDI and thank goodness people considered nuclear research before the last war.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  5127

• 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

  3022

• I like Mr Gorbachev, we can do business together.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  The Times 18 Dec. 1984

  4519

• Freedom is not synonymous with an easy life. ... There are many difficult things about freedom: It does not give you safety, it creates moral dilemmas for you; it requires self-discipline; it imposes great responsibilities; but such is the nature of Man and in such consists his glory and salvation.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  Responsibility  

  2533

• No Western nation has to build a wall round itself to keep its people in.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  Margaret Thatcher (1997). “The collected speeches of Margaret Thatcher”, HarperCollins

  4034

• When you stop a dictator, there are always risks. But there are greater risks in not stopping a dictator.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  3110

• 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.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  732

• I hate extremes of any kind. Communism [seeks] the domination of the state over the individual... All my life I have stood against banning Communism or other extremist organisations because, if you do that, they go underground and it gives them an excitement that they don't get if they are allowed to pursue their policies openly. We'll beat them into the ground on argument...

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  "Hornsey Journal" Interview with Robert Eddison and Barry St John Nevill, www.margaretthatcher.org. April 21, 1978.

  5101

• The Kosovo campaign was a just and necessary war. And I believe that Blair - of whom I have many criticisms - in this case showed real determination in conducting it.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  4397

• I don't want to fight any wars; if you can get them off before we get there, you do it, but off they go.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  Margaret Thatcher, Iain Dale (1997). “As I said to Denis--: the Margaret Thatcher book of quotations”, Robson Book Ltd

  2968

• 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'.

  →

  Margaret Thatcher

  2397

You May Also Like:

Helmut Kohl

Angela Merkel

Denis Thatcher

Meryl Streep

Tony Blair

Carol Thatcher

Winston Churchill

Mikhail Gorbachev