Kenneth Clarke: Isn't it terrible about losing to the Germans at our national sport, Prime Minister?
Margaret Thatcher: I shouldn't worry too much - we've beaten them twice this century at theirs.
Margaret Thatcher 06/1990
Following England's loss to Germany in the 1990 World Cup Soccer Semi Final
If it's one against forty-eight, I feel sorry for the forty eight!
Margaret Thatcher
Category: Commonwealth & Empire, South Africa
If you look ahead 10 years, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the people of Russia had become fans of missile defence.
Donald Rumsfeld
Category: Russia/USSR
Misgovernment...will often be reflected in oppressive or aggressive policies towards groups within the state or towards the state's neighbours.
Margaret Thatcher 24/03/2003
Referring to Zimbabwe
Category: Art of Government, Zimbabwe, State, The
Europe is... a monument to the vanity of individuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure.
Margaret Thatcher 03/2002
Category: European Union , European Constitution, European Federalism, European Integration, Eurosceptic
They are all a rotten lot. Schmidt and the Americans and we are the only people who would do any standing up and fighting if necessary.
Margaret Thatcher 07/1979
On fellow European leaders
Category: Europe & America, Germany
Ah, Francois, it's you. You are with me.
Margaret Thatcher 10/04/1982
To Francois Mitterand, who had pledged her his support on the Falklands conflict
Category: Falklands War, France
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 03/2002
Category: Kosovo, Tony Blair (quotes about)
To accuse Mrs Thatcher of wishing to torpedo Europe because she defends the interests of her country with great determination is to question her underlying intentions in the same way that people used to question those of de Gaulle in regard to French interests.
Anonymous 11/1990
Category: France, Margaret Thatcher (quotes about)
Human rights did not begin with the French Revolution, [they] really stem from a mixture of Judaism and Christianity. [we English] had 1688, our quiet revolution, where Parliament exerted its will over the King. It was not the sort of revolution that France's was - 'Liberty, quality, fraternity' - they forgot obligations and duties I think. And then, of course the fraternity went missing for a long time.
Margaret Thatcher 1989
Category: France, Human Rights
It has been suggested by some people in this country that I and my Government will be a 'soft touch' in the Community. In case such a rumour may have reached your ears, Mr Chancellor, it is only fair to advise you frankly to dismiss it, as my colleagues did long ago! I intend to be very discriminating in judging what are British interests and I shall be resolute in defending them.
Margaret Thatcher 05/1979
At a dinner with Helmut Schmidt
Category: Germany, Europe & Britain
It took us a long time to get rid of the effects of the French Revolution 200 years ago. We don't want another one.
Margaret Thatcher 30/06/1989
On the 200th anniversary of the French revolution
Category: France
If there is one instance in which a foreign policy I pursued met with unambiguous failure, it was my policy on German reunification.
Margaret Thatcher 1993
Category: Germany
All part of my vision of a wider Europe.
Margaret Thatcher 11/1990
On the fall of the Berlin Wall
Category: Germany, EU Enlargement
If I were a German today, I would be proud, proud but also worried. I would be proud of the magnificent achievement of rebuilding my country, entrenching democracy and assuming the undoubtedly preponderant position in Europe. But a united Germany can't and won't subordinate its national interests in economic or in foreign policy to those of the Community indefinitely. Germany's new pre-eminence is a fact - and its power is a problem - as much for Germans as for the rest of Europe.
Margaret Thatcher 15/05/1992
Category: Germany
In the same period that the Americans have lived under one constitution our French friends notched up five. A Punch cartoon has a 19th century Englishman asking a librarian for a copy of the French constitution, only to be told: 'I am sorry Sir, we do not stock periodicals.'
Margaret Thatcher 08/03/1991
Speech to American Conservatives Institute
Category: France
What happened in Russia in 1917 wasn't a revolution - it was a coup d'etat.
Margaret Thatcher 13/10/1989
Category: Russia/USSR, Revolution
We must not fall into the trap of projecting our own morality onto the Soviet leaders. They do not share our aspirations, they are not constrained by our ethics, they always consider themselves exempt from the rules that bind other states.
Margaret Thatcher 30/09/1983
Category: Russia/USSR
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 29/10/1982
Remarks in Berlin.
Category: Russia/USSR, Freedom & Liberty
The Russians put guns before butter. We put just about everything before guns.
Margaret Thatcher 20/01/1976
Category: Russia/USSR
