Margaret Thatcher Quotes

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

The political battle is between big money combines who spend a thousand pounds or more on every constituency they fight… when they speak democracy, they don't mean government by the people...they mean financial democracy, in which money counts and nothing but money.

[Lobbying] has reached such a position of power that it threatens the government itself. Its size, its power, its capacity for evil; its greed, trickery, deception and fraud condemn it to the death it deserves.

The conflict between the policies of the administration and the desires of the financiers of big business is an irreconcilable one. Concessions to the big business interests must, in the end, prove futile.

We need people willing to do things because they are doing what is right, not because some powerful trade association wants it done.

As one voice must labor speak—to reward its friends and punish its enemies.

I believe with $200,000 I can pass our bill. I do not think we can get any legislation this session for land grants or changing line of road unless we pay more for it than it is worth.

If you don’t find out who’s paying for these groups then you don’t know what they’re up to.

The great Government we loved has too often been made use of for private and selfish purposes.

Beware of all men who would turn the tasks and the necessities of the nation to their own private profit or use them for the building up of private power.

The people are weary of detecting the voice of a corporation manager in every political utterance, in the legislature, the Governor's messages, in the expressed opinions of mayors of cities and the Senators sent by the State to Washington, and even in the decisions of judges on the bench.

We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the world – no longer a Government of free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men

It is out of nature that any man should think it good that his own order should be repressed, curtailed, and deprived of its power. If we go among cab-drivers or letter-carriers, among butlers or gamekeepers, among tailors or butchers, among farmers or grazers, among doctors or attorneys, we shall find in each set of men a conviction that the welfare of the community depends upon the firmness with which they, — especially they, — hold their own.

Most lobbying is pro-business, in the sense that it promotes the interests of existing businesses, not pro-market in the sense of fostering truly free and open competition.

… men who are governed by self-interest will combine, whether white or black, and the generous and selfless will similarly unite

The real scandal in Washington is not what is against the law. It is what is not against the law.

… the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.

The use of such means and such agents [paid lobbyists] will have the effect to subject the State governments to the combined capital of wealthy corporations, and produce universal corruption, commencing with the representative and ending with the elector. Speculators in legislation, public and private, a compact corps of venal solicitors, vending their secret influences, will infest the capital of the Union and of every State, till corruption shall become the normal condition of the body politic.

The career politicians down in Washington don't want to be held accountable.

You cannot move a piece of [energy] legislation through Congress in the year 2013 unless the American Petroleum Institute proposes it. You cannot move legislation without their consent. They are a de facto fourth branch of government.

The only people whose views count in the legislation that passes are those with big money. It doesn’t matter what the great majority of Americans want. Our Congress is bought.

The fact that the alcohol lobby doesn’t want a particular kind of research to go forward should be a strong reason to fund it immediately”

I think maybe the people in elected positions are more interested in preserving their jobs than in doing the best job possible.