Doubtless, everyone knows these quotations. They do not date
from yesterday.
But since they were new to me, perhaps they will be new to
someone else.
They are all by Margaret Thatcher; they address diverse
topics; they are clear, concise, cogent, and very high concept. They will brighten your day with wisdom.
They do not require commentary:
1. Being
powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.
2. Look at a day when
you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around
doing nothing; it’s when you’ve had everything to do, and you’ve done it.
3. If my critics saw
me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn’t swim.
!n 1984 I was the Shell UK products trader, merrily buying millions of tonnes of fuel from Soviet Russia into UK oil-fired power stations in order to break the year-lon communist-led miners' strike. I was at an oil industry dinner at Grosvenor House, when the throng realsed that the guest speaker was to be the Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher. At that time I wasn't the idealogue I am now and took quite a bit of ''progressive thinking as self-evidently true. My received image of Thatcher was of a mentally inflexible, blue rinsed, starchy matron with strangulated speech patterns. Hearing her address this audience of oilmen for half an hour was a revelation. I'm allergic to stupidity and what shone through was her intelligence. I'm allergic to moral cowardice in others (less so in myself) and what shone through was her bravery. I'm allergic to bad english - that is lack of clarity and lack of euphony - and she was clear and sounded good. Amongst other flashes of humour she took the piss out of how much money we were making from the strike - this while she personally was at the eye of the historic storm raging around her. From that ime I've been a Thatcherite. What a woman! I recommend her books.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mark, for giving us a sense of what she was like in person!
ReplyDelete