Top 521 Quotes & Sayings by Jimmy Carter
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American celebrity Jimmy Carter.
Last updated on November 25, 2024.
My position has always been, along with many other people, that any differences be resolved in a nonviolent way.
America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.
I've looked on many women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me.
If you're totally illiterate and living on one dollar a day, the benefits of globalization never come to you.
We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon.
War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.
Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease.
Ever since Israel has been a nation the United States has provided the leadership. Every president down to the ages has done this in a fairly balanced way, including George Bush senior, Gerald Ford, and others including myself and Bill Clinton.
We can't equate democracy with Christianity because the largest democracy on earth is India, which is primarily Hindu. The third largest democracy is Indonesia, which is Islamic. Democracy and freedom are not dependent on Christian beliefs.
Unfortunately, after Sept. 11, there was an outburst in America of intense suffering and patriotism, and the Bush administration was very shrewd and effective in painting anyone who disagreed with the policies as unpatriotic or even traitorous.
When I was in the White House, I was confronted with the challenge of the Cold War. Both the Soviet Union and I had 30,000 nuclear weapons that could destroy the entire earth and I had to maintain the peace.
In this outward and physical ceremony we attest once again to the inner and spiritual strength of our Nation. As my high school teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, used to say: 'We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.'
I'm a Southerner.
When we go to the Bible we should keep in mind that the basic principles of the Bible are taught by God, but written down by human beings deprived of modern day knowledge. So there is some fallibility in the writings of the Bible. But the basic principles are applicable to my life and I don't find any conflict among them.
It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature's gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.
When I was president, I announced and I still maintain that I can live with Roe v. Wade. I did everything I possibly could as president under that ruling, which I don't think ought to be changed, to minimize the need for abortions. I think every abortion is a result of a horrible series of errors on the part of people involved.
All my playmates on the farm were black, and later, when I started school in Plains, it was all white. But I was always eager to get back home to my friends in Archery.
I remember the last three days that I was president, I never went to bed at all. I never went to bed until we had negotiated the final release of the hostages.
Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.
In religious and in secular affairs, the more fervent beliefs attract followers. If you are a moderate in any respect - if you're a moderate on abortion, if you're a moderate on gun control, or if you're a moderate in your religious faith - it doesn't evolve into a crusade where you're either right or wrong, good or bad, with us or against us.
I believed what my father taught me about the separation of church and state, so when I was President I never invited Billy Graham to have services in the White House because I didn't think that was appropriate. He was injured a little bit, until I explained it to him.
We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.
You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.
Whatever starts in California unfortunately has an inclination to spread.
Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.
Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.
Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.
The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity.
Too many of us now tend to worship self indulgence and consumption.
I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A. I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts.
It's not necessary to fear the prospect of failure but to be determined not to fail.
There's no doubt that the Christian right has gone to bed with the more conservative elements of the Republican Party. And there's been a melding in their goals when it comes to the separation of church and state. I've always believed in the separation of church and state.
The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.
When I was elected President nobody asked me to negotiate between Israel and Egypt. It was not even a question raised in my campaign. But I felt that one of the reasons that I was elected President was to try to bring peace to the Holy Land.
The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.
I don't claim to be knowledgeable about theology. Most of my knowledge comes out of my experience and the lessons in the Bible. Every Sunday I'm home I teach 45 minutes and we boiled them down to one page for the new book, 'Through the Year with Jimmy Carter.'
For this generation, ours, life is nuclear survival, liberty is human rights, the pursuit of happiness is a planet whose resources are devoted to the physical and spiritual nourishment of its inhabitants.
The first time I ever saw snow skis was when I was 62 years old and that was 19 years ago and I'm still skiing. So, we'll be skiing with some very close friends of the Carter Center letting them know what the Carter Center is doing around the world. We have programs in over 65 countries.
Testing oneself is best when done alone.
I've been writing poems since I was in the Navy - to Rosalynn. I found I could say things in poems that I never could in prose. Deeper, more personal things. I could write a poem about my mother that I could never tell my mother. Or feelings about being on a submarine that I would have been too embarrassed to share with fellow submariners.
We have a tendency to condemn people who are different from us, to define their sins as paramount and our own sinfulness as being insignificant.
I hate to see complacency prevail in our lives when it's so directly contrary to the teaching of Christ.
Globalization, as defined by rich people like us, is a very nice thing... you are talking about the Internet, you are talking about cell phones, you are talking about computers. This doesn't affect two-thirds of the people of the world.
We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.
We've become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy. I think that's been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards to the American political system that I've ever seen in my life.
It is difficult for the common good to prevail against the intense concentration of those who have a special interest, especially if the decisions are made behind locked doors.
My understanding of racial discrimination as a child was highly distorted because the most prominent man in Archery was an African-American bishop. When he came home from up north, where he was in charge of A.M.E. churches in five states, it was front-page news. He was the most successful man in my life.
On balance, my life has been a constant stream of blessings rather than disappointments and failures and tragedies. I wish I had been re-elected. I think I could have kept our country at peace. I think I could have consolidated what we achieved at Camp David with a treaty between Israel and the Palestinians.
I have often wanted to drown my troubles, but I can't get my wife to go swimming.
You just have to have a simple faith.
What has happened at Guantanamo Bay... does not represent the will of the American people. I'm embarrassed about it, I think its wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people.
My great-grandfather and his two brothers fought at Gettysburg. They were in artillery, and they survived the war, thank goodness. So I revere what they did. I think their motivations were honorable when they undertook the war and participated in it along with other Southerners.
If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.
Governance should be designed as an equalizer. Democrats are more inclined towards working families and those who are struggling for a better life.
We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
I'll never tell a lie. I'll never make a misleading statement. I'll never betray the confidence that any of you had in me. And I'll never avoid a controversial issue.
Billy Graham is one of my great lifetime heroes. I think he epitomizes the essence of what a Christian leader should be. I have participated in some of his crusades a couple of times in Atlanta. I've seen the profound impact he's had on me personally, and on other people who were not Christians and accepted Christ as Savior.
We cannot be both the world's leading champion of peace and the world's leading supplier of the weapons of war.
Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things - he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.
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