death and funeral of Margaret Thatcher Quotes

[Margaret Thatcher] told us that its about time that we engaged South Africa in constructive engagement, and that is perhaps the best way to get rid of apartheid. I took her advice and invited De Klerk to this country. I think she was a fine example of a very courageous political leader. She is admired greatly by a majority of countries in Africa.

The passing of Margaret Thatcher is obviously a very sad day for her family and Great Britain. She will be remembered as a very strong and determined leader that faced some real challenges. I think she has left a strong and permanent legacy for Great Britain, the challenges that she faced were quite unique at the time. She was very determined as a leader but she believed passionately in what she was doing and I think she'll be missed by many people in Britain.

She was a great leader, a great friend of the United States, an important representative of Britain in a very difficult period and I found her a warm person - however fiercely she defended her views.

She was one of the most outstanding political personalities of the last quarter of the 20th century and I believe that with the passing of time, her name will not lose importance.

She was a transformative figure under whom the United Kingdom registered important progress on the national and international arena.

Throughout her public life, with the conservative beliefs that she fully assumed, she nurtured the influence of the United Kingdom and the defence of its interests. The relations she maintained with France were always frank and loyal. She knew how to build a constructive and fruitful dialogue with François Mitterrand. Together, they set about reinforcing the ties between our two countries. It was in that era that Mme. Thatcher gave the decisive push to the construction of the Channel tunnel.

With the passing of Baroness Thatcher, the world has lost a giant among leaders. While many in positions of power are defined by the times in which they govern, Margaret Thatcher had that rarest of abilities to herself personify and define the age in which she served. Indeed, with the success of her economic policies, she defined contemporary conservatism itself. Her greatest achievements however, were surely on the world stage. Along with the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and His Holiness Pope John Paul II, she played a key role in the fall of the USSR. The era of peace and prosperity that followed the end of the Cold War must therefore rank as one of her great and lasting gifts to this generation. Lady Thatcher’s leadership in time of conflict and during the generous peace she helped bring forth, was an example to the world. As a result, millions now live with the dignity and freedom that she envisioned for them, during the darkest moments of the post-war years. I recall with pride her eloquent portrayal of the philosophical groundings of the principles that have - and I hope forever will - unite the British and Canadian peoples.

We have lost a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton. As our first woman prime minister, Margaret Thatcher succeeded against all the odds, and the real thing about Margaret Thatcher is that she didn't just lead our country, she saved our country, and I believe she'll go down as the greatest British peacetime prime minister. Her legacy will be the fact she served her country so well, she saved our country and that she showed immense courage in doing so. And people will be learning about what she did and her achievements in decades, probably for centuries to come.

In government, the UK was turned around under - and in large measure because of - her leadership. Her reforms of the economy, trades union law, and her recovery of the Falkland Islands elevated her above normal politics, and may not have been achieved under any other leader. Her outstanding characteristics will always be remembered by those who worked closely with her: courage and determination in politics, and humanity and generosity of spirit in private.

Although she was always a steadfast critic of apartheid, she had a much better grasp of the complexities and geo-strategic realities of South Africa than many of her contemporaries. She consistently, and correctly, believed that much more could be achieved through constructive engagement with the South African government than through draconian sanctions and isolation. She also understood the need to consider the concerns and aspirations of all South Africans in their search for constitutional consensus.

Baroness Thatcher will be remembered as the British Prime Minister whose signature appears on the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed in Beijing in December 1984.

We will miss her great leadership. She was a pioneering leader for her contribution to peace and security, particularly at the height of the Cold War. She was also a great model as the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who not only demonstrated her leadership but has given such great hope for many women for equality, gender equality in Parliament

Mrs. Thatcher was a powerful politician who will be remembered by many for the destructive and divisive policies she reigned over which in the end, even in the Tory party, proved to be her downfall. Her legacy involves the destruction of communities, the elevation of personal greed over social values and legitimizing the exploitation of the weak by the strong.

Margaret Thatcher was a pioneer, willingly or unwillingly, for the role of women in politics. It is hard to imagine a part of our current history that has not been affected by measures she put forward in the UK at the end of the 20th Century.

Mark Thatcher told a gathering of journalists "Good Afternoon. Thank you all very much for coming. I just wanted to say a few words. First of all and most importantly, I would like to say how enormously proud and equally grateful we are that Her Majesty has agreed to attend the service next week at St. Paul’s. I know my mother would be greatly honored as well as humbled by her presence. By any measure my mother was blessed with a long life and a very full one. However the inevitability or the inevitable conclusion may appear, of the recent illness she suffered it is no easier for us to bear in what is without doubt a very sad moment. We have quite simply been overwhelmed by messages of support, condolence of every type from far and wide and I know that my mother would be pleased they have come from people of all walks of life. These messages often convey personal stories and vignette of parts of the journey of my mother’s life and we are all enormously grateful for the warmth that these messages convey and they will be a source of encouragement and strength as we face the inevitable days ahead and for that I am most grateful. I don’t think I’ve got anything else to say. I’m sorry I’m not going to take questions - that’s it. Thank you very much for coming."