Top 1200 President Jimmy Carter Quotes & Sayings

Probably the smartest president we've had in terms of I.Q. in the last 50 years was Jimmy Carter, and I think he is the worst president of the last 50 years.

One undeniable accomplishment of Bill Clinton's presidency was that it kept Jimmy Carter from being the worst U.S. president in history.

If you could have imagined that someone is happy that Obama is president, it has to be Jimmy Carter because he is no longer the worst president in our history.

The polling data in 1980 had Jimmy Carter nine points, winning by nine points, four or five days out. I will never forget that election night. In 1980 it was so bad for the Democrats - they got skunked so bad - Jimmy Carter conceded before 10 p.m. Eastern time.

I was at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, and I was performing at a show there. Jimmy Carter was going to be coming through with his Secret Service detail. The manager pulled me aside, and they didn't want me to shake Jimmy Carter's hand because they were afraid it would make the news if I stole from him.

Pundits are saying that President Obama is starting to lose support among his own party. To give you an idea of how bad it's gotten, today Jimmy Carter compared him to Jimmy Carter.

This is not the colonial empire that somehow he has in his hand. I’ve never felt that from him. I felt that from [George] W [Bush]. I felt that from [Bill] Clinton. I felt that from every American president, including ones I disagreed with, including [Jimmy] Carter. I don’t feel that from President Obama.

Jimmy Carter is the most intelligent. Jimmy Carter is a good man.

Soviet foreign ministers would come in to see the president all the time, routinely. Jimmy Carter stopped that after the invasion of Afghanistan. Ronald Reagan resumed it in 1984, I think. And so the fact of a meeting like that I think is not that big a deal.

There are a lot of things that I really question - the legality of the drone strikes, these NSA revelations. Jimmy Carter came out and said we don’t live in a democracy. That’s a little intense when an ex-president says that. So you know, he’s got some explaining to do, particularly for a constitutional law professor.

With nearly two years remaining in his presidency, George W. Bush is alone. In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated from his own party in Congress - not Jimmy Carter, not even Richard Nixon as he faced impeachment. Republicans in Congress do not trust their president to protect them.

President Obama is a president so weak that he makes Jimmy Carter look strong.

Jimmy Carter, who embraced all manner of schemes to make America a second or third-rate country, came down so squarely in favor of the double nickel [the 55 mph National Speed Limit]...This is the same Jimmy Carter whose limosine with him in it, just a little later in his presidency, was timed at an average of 72 mph for the 21.5 mile trip from Detroit Metro to the Detroit Plaza Hotel. He didn't want to be late for a campaign appearance.

Just when you think there's nothing to write about, Nixon says, "I am not a crook." Jimmy Carter says, "I have lusted after women in my heart." President Reagan says, "I have just taken a urinalysis test, and I am not on dope."

'Morning Joe' host Mika Brzezinski's personal life is a minefield. Her father is Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, and while one brother is an Obama appointee, the other advises Romney.

President Jimmy Carter inherited an impossible situation - and he and his advisers made the worst of it.

In critical ways, Obama has reversed not just Bush policy but every president's approach to the world since the Second World War, save for that of his soulmate Jimmy Carter.

Four years of Jimmy Carter gave us two titanic Reagan landslides, peace and prosperity for eight blessed years - and even a third term for his feckless vice president, George H.W. Bush.

If I hadn't been so outspoken, Jimmy Carter wouldn't have wanted me.

Whereas Jimmy Carter had aggressively pursued anti-merger activity - the imbecilic case against AT&T was prosecuted under President Carter - Mr. Reagan understood the virtue of allowing companies to exploit the synergies of mergers to gain efficiency and lower costs.

The malaise and military decline of the post-Vietnam years under President Jimmy Carter set the stage for Russian aggression abroad and uncertainty among our allies.

I don't know what people have against Jimmy Carter. He's done nothing.

Jimmy Carter was unquestionably the most moral president of my lifetime, but he wasn't much of a president.

It would be bad for the economy if we have another Jimmy Carter grain embargo, Jimmy, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter grain embargo, Jimmy Carter grain embargo.

I only remember a few things about Jimmy Carter. He had big lips and liked peanuts. I now know that Jimmy Carter was and is a good man.

Bush met with former President Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter is 76 years old, or as Democrats call him 'their bright new star of the future.'

In Plains, I saw Jimmy Carter as he really is - a nice, decent man... in terms of compassionate contribution to society, he certainly has proven to be our best past president.

We saw what happened in Jimmy Carter's administration. President Carter was a good man with the best of intentions. But he came to Washington without a good working relationship with Democratic members of Congress, which played a big part in his administration's problems.

Indeed, one modern President abjured God altogether, ending speeches with a chaste 'Thank you very much.' This was Jimmy Carter, the most genuinely devout President of the postwar period.

There is no question that, in 1980, Ronald Reagan had been portrayed as a war-monger, somebody who couldn't do anything off a script. And the one debate with President Jimmy Carter, he stood toe-to-toe and reassured people that he wasn't bound and determined to start World War III on the spot and could make a coherent statement.

Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as 'the president who lost Iran,'

I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under another, then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence.

White House cultures inevitably reflect the president's character. Jimmy Carter is a thoroughly honest, good person. So was his White House.

Jimmy Carter as President is like Truman Capote marrying Dolly Parton. The job is just too big for him.

President Jimmy Carter was a citizen soldier. Ironically, he was considered weak because he didn't kill anybody and he didn't get anyone killed.

It was not malaise we suffered from; it was Jimmy Carter - and Walter Mondale.

The only book by a modern president that bears serious comparison with Obama's 'Dreams From My Father' is Jimmy Carter's short campaign autobiography, 'Why Not the Best?,' published in 1975.

President Ronald Reagan on his 1980 opponent: "I had a dream the other night. I dreamed that Jimmy Carter came to me and asked why I wanted his job. I told him I didn't want his job. I want to be President."

President Ford was taken for a ride by his predecessor, whom he unpardonably pardoned; Jimmy Carter was also taken for a ride, but by his successor, Ronald Reagan, over the return of the Iran hostages.

In the last 100 years only Presidents George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford lost their bids for reelection. President Lyndon Johnson did not run for a second term.

A troubled economy is always the sitting president's fault. It was when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter, when Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush, and when Barack Obama defeated John McCain by running against George W. Bush.

It took Jimmy Carter to give us Ronald Reagan.

It's hard to look inside a person to answer a question about why anybody wants to be president. I suppose a combination of ambition, ego, and a real feeling that he could make a difference and could accomplish some things. All you ever had to do for Jimmy Carter was to tell him something was impossible, and he would usually do it.

When it comes to jobs, President Obama makes the Jimmy Carter years look like good old days. If we fired Jimmy Carter then, why would we rehire Barack Obama now?

Jimmy Carter is not loved in Israel, and yet no American president gave them a greater gift than Jimmy Carter gave them with peace with Egypt, and the opportunity to make peace with the Palestinians.

I spent a lot of 2012 going around the country saying that President Obama was the most liberal and most incompetent president in my lifetime ever since Jimmy Carter. Now having witnessed the events abroad these last several days, to President Carter, I want to issue a sincere apology. It is no longer fair to say he was the worst president of this great country in my lifetime, President Obama has proven me wrong.

Frankly, neither president [Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter] was an inspiring figure; so, maybe their lack of inspiration by the founders shouldn't surprise us.

I think Barack Obama is gonna go down as the worst president ever, frankly. I used to say that about Jimmy Carter but I think he's gonna be surpassed.

Jimmy Carter was - he still - he remains to this day America's most ex of ex-presidents. You just can't believe that we elected this doofus. He was a bright enough guy and sort of well-meaning. But he was about as prepared to be president of the United States as your goofy old uncle, you know, the one that memorises baseball statistics.

I'm looking for a president that'll be like a Ronald Reagan to a Jimmy Carter.

When I graduated from law school in 1959, there wasn't a single woman on any federal bench. It wouldn't be a realistic ambition for a woman to want to become a federal judge. It wasn't realistic until Jimmy Carter became our president.

One seldom expects the country's president to adequately note the passing of a rocker, but Jimmy Carter's assessment of Elvis Presley's appeal - 'energy, rebelliousness and good humor' - is remarkably close to the mark.

The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border of Afghanistan, I wrote to President Jimmy Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.

Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama, each were told repeatedly, 'You can't win.' They all won.

Jimmy Carter, of course, was beloved. Peanut farmer. Came out of nowhere, governor of Georgia. Normally Democrats hate Southern accents, 'cause Southern accents equals Deliverance, equals hayseed, equals idiot. But if it's one of them... But you had to look the other way with Jimmy Carter and then here came Bill Clinton later. So depending on where the Southern accent's from, they'll make an exception and not be prejudicial about it. But for the most part, a Southern accent may as well be a slave owner as far as Democrats are concerned; they want no part of it.

During a recent press conference, former President Jimmy Carter said he could never run for president today because he doesn't have a lot of money. Well, that and the fact that he's the famously bad president Jimmy Carter.

The Democrats loved Jimmy Carter, even though - and, by the way, take a look at some economic circumstances. In 1980, the economy of this country was in the tank after four years of Jimmy Carter. I mean, it was desperately bad. Unemployment was sky-high. Carter had seen us through a couple of near-depression recessions, all of this coming out of Watergate, which happened in 1972.

Even Jimmy Carter can't be wrong all the time.

I was deeply involved in the decision that President Jimmy Carter made to boycott the Olympics in Moscow in 1980.

Electing Barack Obama president was a glorious Jackie Robinson moment for the United States of America. Obama didn't just win; he became the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter to win a popular-vote majority.