Jimmy Carter quotes

Born
October 1, 1924, Plains, Georgia, U.S.

Occupation
President, politician, author.

Jimmy Carter is an American politician and author who served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Carter Center.

Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.
– Jimmy Carter

I have often wanted to drown my troubles, but I can’t get my wife to go swimming.
– Jimmy Carter

Sadat was a great and good man, and his most bitter and dangerous enemies were people who were obsessed with hatred for his peaceful goals.
– Jimmy Carter

We cannot be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of the weapons of war.
– Jimmy Carter

My favourite president, and the one I admired most, was Harry Truman.
– Jimmy Carter

My decision to register women confirms what is already obvious throughout our society-that women are now providing all types of skills in every profession. The military should be no exception.
– Jimmy Carter

I think I was identified as a failed president because I wasn’t re-elected.
– Jimmy Carter

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.
– Jimmy Carter

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.
– Jimmy Carter

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.
– Jimmy Carter

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.
– Jimmy Carter

Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.
– Jimmy Carter

I had very good support from Democrats and Republicans all throughout my administration. I had a very high batting average. We added more jobs per year in my four years than any other president since the Second World War.
– Jimmy Carter

My constant prayer, my number one foreign goal, is to bring peace to Israel. And in the process to Israel’s neighbours.
– Jimmy Carter

A fundamentalist can’t bring himself or herself to negotiate with people who disagree with them because the negotiating process itself is an indication of implied equality.
– Jimmy Carter

I’m going to stay active as long as I can politically, and with the Carter Center primarily, and if I’m able mentally and physically, will continue to be quite active.
– Jimmy Carter

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.
– Jimmy Carter

Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.
– Jimmy Carter

Too many of us now tend to worship self indulgence and consumption.
– Jimmy Carter

To deal with individual human needs at the everyday level can be noble sometimes.
– Jimmy Carter

We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.
– Jimmy Carter

You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.
– Jimmy Carter

The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy’s deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed in 1978 or ’79.
– Jimmy Carter

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.
– Jimmy Carter

We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.
– Jimmy Carter

When you single out any particular group of people for secondary citizenship status, that’s a violation of basic human rights.
– Jimmy Carter

I personally have always been in favor of people who are gay being permitted to marry legally – and I still feel that way.
– Jimmy Carter

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.
– Jimmy Carter

I think politicians really go with the tide.
– Jimmy Carter

I am confident that when the facts and policies have been examined, when the record of performances have been reviewed, Barack Obama and Joe Biden will once again be elected to lead our beloved country to a better future.
– Jimmy Carter

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.
– Jimmy Carter

You just have to have a simple faith.
– Jimmy Carter

If I go to Italy, I will certainly request to meet with Pope Francis, whom I admire very much.
– Jimmy Carter

Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.
– Jimmy Carter

You can’t divorce religious belief and public service I’ve never detected any conflict between God’s will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.
– Jimmy Carter

It’s not necessary to fear the prospect of failure but to be determined not to fail.
– Jimmy Carter

Testing oneself is best when done alone.
– Jimmy Carter

I had just as much support from Republicans as I did Democrats when I ran for president. But I should have organized the Democratic Party to get me re-elected.
– Jimmy Carter

My – both my sisters died with pancreatic cancer. My brother died with pancreatic cancer. My daddy died of pancreatic cancer. My mother died with breast cancer.
– Jimmy Carter

There’s no way now for you to get a Democratic or Republican nomination without being able to raise $200 or $300 million or more. I would not be inclined to do that, and I would not be capable of doing it.
– 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.
– Jimmy Carter

The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.
– Jimmy Carter

I have 22 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and they keep me young.
– Jimmy Carter

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.
– Jimmy Carter

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.
– Jimmy Carter

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.
– Jimmy Carter

People make a big fuss over you when you’re President. But I’m very serious about doing everything I can to make sure that it doesn’t go to my head.
– Jimmy Carter

We must make it clear that a platform of ‘I hate gay men and women’ is not a way to become president of the United States.
– Jimmy Carter

If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.
– Jimmy Carter

I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.
– Jimmy Carter

I wish I had known when I was in the White House what I know now about the Third World.
– Jimmy Carter

If you’re totally illiterate and living on one dollar a day, the benefits of globalization never come to you.
– Jimmy Carter

I hate to see complacency prevail in our lives when it’s so directly contrary to the teaching of Christ.
– Jimmy Carter

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.
– Jimmy Carter

At the Carter Center we work with victims of oppression, and we give support to human rights heroes.
– Jimmy Carter

We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.
– Jimmy Carter

We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon.
– Jimmy Carter

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.
– Jimmy Carter

Governance should be designed as an equalizer. Democrats are more inclined towards working families and those who are struggling for a better life.
– Jimmy Carter

Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease.
– Jimmy Carter

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.
– Jimmy Carter

I’ve just finished my 20th book this past year and I’m working on my 21st book about the Middle East right now that I’ll finish this year. And I get up early in the morning and when I get tired of the computer and tired of doing research, I walk 20 steps out to my woodshop and I either build furniture or paint paintings. I’m an artist too.
– Jimmy Carter

I look forward to these confrontations with the press to kind of balance up the nice and pleasant things that come to me as president.
– Jimmy Carter

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.
– Jimmy Carter

You can not divorce religious belief and public service. I’ve never detected any conflict between God’s will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.
– Jimmy Carter

Whatever starts in California unfortunately has an inclination to spread.
– Jimmy Carter