Margaret Thatcher Quotes

In Europe … nationalism is nothing more than a mania.

The major contributing factor to the success of European nationalism has been its projection as disinterested internationalism

Unless we Americans are willing to go on indefinitely, merely to provide loot for Europe, we should personally see to it that a man is elected as President this year whose guiding motto is, "America First.

Let me tell you, we're still the best country on earth and we're going to take care of our people and we're going to protect this country and the people here.

What I will do is put America first. People don't like to use that term of America first, but we're going to make America great again by putting America first.

The danger, though - and there have been signs of this recently - is that Europe begins to demonstrate a return to more nationalist sentiment. To my mind, that would be a great mistake.

Antonin Scalia and Donald Trump both. They love the country. They do not understand people who don't. They would love that everybody else loved the country. But it's not gonna happen.

Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence . . . the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake.

Let us, then, draw together in the name, not of jingoism, but of justice

Every new development for the last three centuries has brought men closer to a state of affairs in which absolutely nothing would be recognized in the whole world as possessing a claim to obedience except the authority of the State. The majority of people in Europe obey nothing else.

We do not need to import any foreign economic ideas or any foreign government. We had better stick to the American brand of government, the American brand of equality, and the American brand of wages. America had better stay American

I feel myself always the patriot of all oppressed fatherlands. Nationality is a historic, local fact which, like all real and harmless facts, has the right to claim general acceptance. Every people, like every person, is involuntarily that which it is and therefore has a right to be itself. Nationality is not a principle; it is a legitimate fact, just as individuality is. Every nationality, great or small, has the incontestable right to be itself, to live according to its own nature. This right is simply the corollary of the general principal of freedom.

A people fired ... with love of their country and of liberty, a zeal for the public good, and a noble emulation of glory, will not be disheartened or dispirited by a succession of unfortunate events. But like them, may we learn by defeat the power of becoming invincible.

War is an absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political. That a war can be represented as helping a people to 'feel good' about themselves, or their country, is a measure of that failure.

People who enjoy waving flags don't deserve to have one.

Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

The difference between that which is humane and that which is patriotic is a vital difference.

I'm an Englishman. What more can I say?

Donald Trump is going to remain completely focused on American citizens and people who are here legally, and how we get this country working for people who play by the rules.

Patriotism is "a very definite feeling of preference for one's own people or State above all other peoples and States, and a consequent wish to get for that people or State the greatest advantages and power that can be got - things which are obtainable only at the expense of the advantages and power of other peoples or States."

When people begin to talk about "our island story" my hackles rise. It is deluded and conservative.

The lessons of paternalism ought to be unlearned and the better lesson taught that while the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their government, its functions do not include the support of the people.

We Scots have a fierce pride in the things we do that others can never appreciate. I am the British No. 1, but I would prefer to be the British No. 1 from Scotland every time.

People are less certain of their national identities or their place in the world. It starts looking different and disorienting. And there is no doubt that that has produced populist movements both from the left and from the right in many countries in Europe.