By Andrew Osborn and Sarah Young LONDON (Reuters) - Britain gave Margaret Thatcher its grandest political funeral in half a century on Wednesday as her flag-draped coffin was borne through central London on a horse-drawn gun carriage, though a few boos were a reminder of her divisive rule and legacy. In an event comparable to Winston Churchill's funeral in 1965, the Queen joined top British and foreign politicians past and present to pay her final respects to the "Iron Lady" who - for better or for ill - transformed the country.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher-who died on Monday from a stroke at age 87-retired from public engagements in 2002 following a series of small strokes, and was only occasionally seen in public since then. Here are memorable quotes from her public life. “If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.”-May 20, 1965, speech to National Union of Townswomen’s Guilds Conference. “There are dangers in consensus: It could be an attempt to satisfy people holding no particular views about anything.

When US president Ronald Reagan ordered the 1983 invasion of the small Caribbean island of Grenada after a coup, he got an earful from an angry world leader: his closest ally, Britain's Margaret Thatcher. Friends with her fellow conservative confidante since the mid-1970s, the prime minister was furious she had not been consulted ahead of the US storming of a territory in the British Commonwealth.

Mikhail Gorbachev, Helmut Kohl and Bill Clinton were among the former friends and foes who joined in tributes to Margaret Thatcher, praising the fearlessness and fierce determination of an "iconic" leader. The "Iron Lady" was a polarising figure in Britain and beyond, but foreign leaders Monday were unanimous in acknowledging her place in 20th-century history, with President Barack Obama mourning a "true friend of America". Thatcher died of a stroke on Monday in London aged 87.