I was well affected by today’s news of Baroness Thatcher’s passing. She was a standard presence in my A-Levels Government & Politics classroom. My teacher, Mr. Philpott, was an RAF pilot in the world wars and was so deeply interested in English politics and personalities, with good reason of course. He taught me to love her. I wanted to be her, I knew a number of her quotes off the top of my head. She seemed so absolutely cool. Mr. Philpott always said “Margaret Thatcher was “…feminine but never a feminist”. He thought, and taught, that that was an incredibly smart way to handle politics as a woman. He was coaching me for a future as a political leader in Africa, I think he thought. Who knows?

The world has indeed lost a treasure. The Brits have certainly lost a key piece to their historic puzzle but she lived a long, full and rich life. Rest in perfection Baroness Thatcher, of all the famous women in the world, you inspired this tiny African girl the most. Your ascendancy on your own efforts and strong belief in yourself, your ambition, grace, elegance, fascinated me, your command of yourself and your consistently comic yet often brave retorts delighted me. Your ability to remain feminine, not a feminist, in a testosterone charged industry, fueled me to search for more, to dream bigger, to dare to think that women too can OWN corridors of power. Best of all, I love that you never sacrificed your womanhood to play with the boys, you were a lady through and through. Rest in perfection.

I have listed some of my fave Margaret Thatcher quotes below. The woman was truly remarkable, formidably clever and perhaps one of the funniest women in the world!

“If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.” – 1965, speech to National Union of Townswomen’s Guilds Conference.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you tonight in my Red Star chiffon evening gown. My face softly made up and my fair hair gently waved. The Iron Lady of the Western world. A cold war warrior, an amazon philistine, even a Peking plotter. Well, am I any of these things? … Yes I am an iron lady, after all it wasn’t a bad thing to be an iron duke. Yes, if that’s how they wish to interpret my defence of values and freedoms fundamental to our way of life.” – 1976, speech to Finchley Conservatives.

“I am not a consensus politician. I’m a conviction politician.” – 1979

“I don’t mind how much my ministers talk, as long as they do what I say.” – 1980

“To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.” – At the 1980 Conservative Party conference to colleagues urging her to soften her economic policies which were driving up unemployment.

“There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families.” – 1987, magazine interview.

“If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time and you would achieve nothing.” – 1989, commenting on her 10th anniversary as prime minister.

“I fight on, I fight to win.” – In November 1990, after failing to win enough votes to avoid a second round in the Conservative leadership contest. She resigned the next day.

What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose.

Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.

Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and person.

Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.

Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.

I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.

To wear your heart on your sleeve isn’t a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.

It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.

I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air.

I’ve got a woman’s ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it.

“I never hugged him. I bombed him.” — Responding to a picture of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair embracing Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Ghadafi, March 13, 2011.

“I’m back…and you knew I was coming. On my way here I passed a cinema with the sign “The Mummy Returns.”

Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked
down by the traffic from both sides.

It pays to know the enemy – not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.

Truth usually is the same old story.

Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan.

Being prime minister is a lonely job… you cannot lead from the crowd.

It may be the cock that crows, but it is the hen that lays the eggs.

One of the things being in politics has taught me is that men are not a reasoned or reasonable sex.

If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn’t swim.

People think that at the top there isn’t much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top.

-Margaret Thatcher

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-Read more here: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/2013/04/20134814575820719.html