Jimmy Carter's Quotes & Sayings

Israel's continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land. — Jimmy Carter

Americans long thought that nature could take care of itself-or that if it did not, the consequences were someone else's problem. As we know now, that assumption was wrong; none of us is a stranger to environmental problems. — Jimmy Carter

Elvis was a symbol of the country's vitality, rebelliousness, and good humor. — Jimmy Carter

The reason inflation was brought down to manageable levels, by the time of Ronald Reagan's re-election, was directly attributable to Jimmy Carter's very courageous act, hiring a Federal Reserve chair, with the charge to induce a recession. That recession was probably the reason he didn't win a second term. — Rick Perlstein

I am no big shot. I am not anybody's boss. I want to be everybody's servant. — Jimmy Carter

It was the darndest thing I've ever seen. It was big, it was very bright, it changed colors and it was about the size of the moon.. We watched it for ten minutes, but none of us could figure out what it was. One thing's for sure, I'll never make fun of people who say they've seen unidentified objects in the sky. — Jimmy Carter

Within the stable economy it's necessary to eliminate all forms of sexual discrimination, and to provide women for the first time in our history with economic opportunities equal to those of men. — Jimmy Carter

We can drift along as though there were still a cold war, wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons that will never be used, ignoring the problems of people in this country and around the world, being one of the worst environmental violators on earth, standing against any sort of viable programs to protect the world's forests or to cut down on acid rain or the global warming or ozone depletion. We can ignore human rights violations in other countries, or we can take these things on as true leaders ought to and accept the inspiring challenge of America for the future. — Jimmy Carter

Habitat gives us an opportunity which is very difficult to find: to reach out and work side by side with those who never have had a decent home-but work with them on a completely equal basis. It's not a big-shot, little-shot relationship. It's a sense of equality. — Jimmy Carter

In 1976, Jimmy Carter - peanut farmer; carried his own suitcase, imagine that - somewhat tapped America's durable but shallow reservoir of populism. By 1980, ordinariness in high office had lost its allure. — George Will

SO NOW IT'S 1979. Year of the Goat. The Earth Goat. Here are some things you might remember. Margaret Thatcher had just been elected prime minister. Idi Amin had fled Uganda. Jimmy Carter would soon be facing the Iran hostage crisis. In the meantime, he was the first and last president ever to be attacked by a swamp rabbit. That man could not catch a break. — Karen Joy Fowler

Failure is a reality; we all fail at times, and it's painful when we do. But it's better to fail while striving for something wonderful, challenging, adventurous, and uncertain than to say, I don't want to try because I may not succeed completely. — Jimmy Carter

I don't want to tell President Obama how to make a speech. He's a much better speech maker than I am. But I think always to tell the truth in a sometimes blatant way, even though it might be temporarily unpopular, is the best approach. — Jimmy Carter

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. — Michele Bachmann

When your troops go to war, the prime minister or the president change overnight from an administrator, dealing with taxation and welfare and health and deteriorating roads, into the commander-in-chief. And it's just become almost unpatriotic to describe Bush's fallacious and ill-advised and mistaken and sometimes misleading actions. — Jimmy Carter

It's not our job to choose the best Sunday school teacher, like Jimmy Carter was. It's our job to choose who would defend and protect our nation, who would be the best president. — Jerry Falwell Jr.

There's always enough to fill up the headlines in a newspaper, the evening news broadcasts. I'm always grateful when I get the weekly news magazines on Monday morning and don't see my picture on the front. — Jimmy Carter

Oil shaped U.S. decisions about the Middle East during both Democratic and Republican presidencies. The administration of President Jimmy Carter, a liberal Democrat, had produced the "Carter Doctrine." Under this doctrine, the United States claimed the right to defend its interest in Middle Eastern oil "by any means necessary, including military force." In — Howard Zinn

I am not going to use the federal government's authority deliberately to circumvent the natural inclination of people to live in ethnic homogeneous neighborhoods. — Jimmy Carter

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. — Art Buchwald

My faith has helped me to adjust to life whether I was a small farm boy, a submarine officer, governor, president or an ex-president. I've tried to remember the teaching that we have to accommodate change we can't control in our lives, whether it's disappointment, sorrow, loss or failure, while simultaneously clinging to principles that never change. — Jimmy Carter

I just look at death as not a threat. It's inevitable, and I have an assurance of eternal life. — Jimmy Carter

Take the [1980] Jimmy Carter-Ronald Reagan debate. Carter kept trying to imply that somehow Ronald Reagan was going to push the button, or was irresponsible with nuclear war. You might have been able to make the case that Carter was responsible. But it's very tough when you see a person with Reagan's nice-guy persona up there to believe this guy somehow wants nuclear war, that he somehow wants to antagonize the Russians into an attack. It's just not credible; it doesn't cut with what all your other senses are telling you. — Roger Ailes

He [Jimmy Carter] says his lust is in his heart. I hope it's a little lower. — Shirley Maclaine

The friction began at this first meeting. O'Neill was not initially impressed with Reagan and said to him, "You've been a governor of a state, but a governor plays in the minor leagues. You're in the big leagues now." (O'Neill had said the same thing to Jimmy Carter four years before.) Reagan replied, "Oh, you know, no problem there." Despite the genial response, O'Neill's comment represented the very kind of Washington haughtiness that set Reagan's teeth on edge. Aides to the president-elect were incensed. — Steven F. Hayward

Think of Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter or Billy Graham, or even Albert Einstein, and what will come to your mind is an image, a picture of face, (in Einstein's case, a photograph of a face). Of words, nothing will come to mind. This is the difference between thinking in a word-centered culture and thinking in an image-centered culture. — Neil Postman

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. — Elliott Abrams

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

Except during my childhood, when I was probably influenced by Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel depiction of God with a flowing white beard, I have never tried to project the Creator in any kind of human likeness. The vociferous debates about whether God is male or female seem ridiculous to me. I think of God as an omnipotent and omniscient presence, a spirit that permeates the universe, the essence of truth, nature, being, and life. To me, these are profound and indescribable concepts that seem to be trivialized when expressed in words. — 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 to live together in peace by killing each other's children. — Jimmy Carter

There's a common perception among college administrators that they should conceal the high level of sexual assaults that take place on their campuses because it would bring discredit to the university, bring them a bad name if it was publicized. — Jimmy Carter

Go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is. — Jimmy Carter

Each of us has been made "a little lower than the angels." What an incomprehensible compliment! But it's not only a compliment; it's also a responsibility, for our special status equalizes us with other people in the eyes of God. The Lord has exalted not only me or some special group; God has exalted everyone. It's the people of Burkina Faso and Niger and Guyana and Haiti. It's people who never learned to read and write or who live on fifty cents a day. All human beings have been made a little lower than the angels, and we have a responsibility to treat them accordingly. — Jimmy Carter

What changed their mind was Jimmy Carter's intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation. — Paul Weyrich

I believe that anyone can be successful in life, regardless of natural talent or the environment within which we live. This is not based on measuring success by human competitiveness for wealth, possessions, influence, and fame, but adhering to God's standards of truth, justice, humility, service, compassion, forgiveness, and love. — Jimmy Carter

These self-anointed intellectuals are people who think that those who believe in God and Jesus Christ, those who 'cling to their guns and their religion,' are a lower form of animal life, while they, themselves, have no problem whatever accepting Obama as a messiah and, in the past, deifying the likes of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Let's face it, when you kneel in a church, you're accepting that there is something greater and wiser than yourself in the universe. When, on the other hand, you kneel to a left-wing politician, you're merely emulating Monica Lewinsky. — Burt Prelutsky

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

The Carter Center has the only existing international taskforce on disease eradication. Which means a total elimination of a disease on the face of the Earth. In the history of the world, there's only been one disease eradicated: smallpox. The second disease, I think, is gonna be guinea worm. — Jimmy Carter

One of our nation's greatest leaders of all time was Hubert Horatio Hornblower. — Jimmy Carter

So I hear we get to go to town this weekend. Want to catch a movie or something?
Z
P.S. That is, if Jimmy doesn't mind.
Translation: This weekend might be a good chance for us to see each other outside our school in a social environment, free of competetiton. I do not view other boys as threats, and I enjoy making them seem insignificant by calling them the wrong names. (Translation by Macey McHenry) — Ally Carter

To say that Jimmy Carter does not understand politics or is not a good politician denies the phenomenon by which he got to the White House. He is without question the best politician, when he's working at it, of anybody I have ever seen. — Hamilton Jordan

I tried to eliminate the need for Israel to strike out, militarily, by removing its major threat and attacker, and that was Egypt. I've written a few books on the subject. There's no doubt that the best way to resolve Israel's problems is to negotiate peace between Israel and its immediate neighbors, particularly the Palestinians. And that's something that's not going to be achieved, in my opinion, without the strong involvement of the American president. — Jimmy Carter

As a Christian, a trained engineer and scientist, and a professor at Emory University, I am embarrassed by Superintendent Kathy Cox's attempt to censor and distort the education of Georgia's students ... There is no need to teach that stars can fall out of the sky and land on a flat Earth in order to defend our religious faith. — Jimmy Carter

It's very difficult for the American people to believe that our government, one of the richest on Earth, is also one of the stingiest on Earth. — 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

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

The bottom line is this: Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American policy, with the wishes of a majority of its own citizens
and honor its own previous commitments
by accepting its legal borders. All Arab neighbors must pledge to honor Israel's right to live in peace under these conditions. The United States is squandering international prestige and goodwill and intensifying global anti-American terrorism by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories. — Jimmy Carter

It's a terrible and tragic and counterproductive policy to avoid communicating with people who disagree with us. — Jimmy Carter

Last year I was on Pat Robertson's show, and we discussed our basic Christian faith - for instance, separation of church and state. It's contrary to my beliefs to try to exalt Christianity as having some sort of preferential status in the United States. That violates the Constitution. I'm not in favor of mandatory prayer in school or of using public funds to finance religious education. — Jimmy Carter

Jimmy used to drink liquor. Now he's running for president and he drinks Scotch, and I've never trusted a Scotch-drinker. — Billy Carter

I don't believe that China, in my lifetime or maybe my children's lifetime, be equal to the United States militarily speaking, but they are very careful to avoid any engagement in war, they are basically a peaceful country, which gives them another advantage over the United States when we are much more inclined to go to war for various reasons. — Jimmy Carter

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. — Jim Hunt

I realize that violence is not more prevalent today than in previous periods of human history, but there is a difference. We have seen visionary standards adopted by the global community that espouse peace and human rights, and the globalization of information ensures that the violation of these principles of nonviolence by a powerful and admired democracy tends to resonate throughout the world community. We should have advanced much further in the realization of women's rights, given these international commitments to peace and the rule of law. — Jimmy Carter

I separated from the Southern Baptists when they adopted the discriminatory attitude towards women, because I believe what Paul taught in Galatians that there is no distinction in God's eyes between men and women, slaves and masters, Jews and non-Jews - everybody is created equally in the eyes of God. — Jimmy Carter

My opinion of the Russians has changed most drastically in the last week than even (sic) the two-and-a-half years before that. It's only now dawning upon the world the magnitude of the action that the Soviets undertook in invading Afghanistan. — Jimmy Carter

At the first Holocaust memorial commemoration in the Capitol Rotunda, both President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Mondale referred to the 'eleven million victims.' Carter also used Wiesenthal's figures of 'six million Jews and five million others' in his Executive Order establishing the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. I have attended Holocaust memorial commemorations in places as diverse as synagogues and army forts where eleven candles were lit. More significant is that strangers have repeatedly taken me and other colleagues to task for ignoring the five million non-Jews. When I explain that this is an invented concept, they become convinced of my ethnocentrism. — Deborah E. Lipstadt

I am somewhat influenced by the years that I've spent trying to actually get things done, whether it was reforming education in Arkansas or a survey and Legal Services Corporation board when President [Jimmy ]Carter appointed me and trying to get lawyers for poor people. I have worked in these areas. I know it's more than just a hope. You've got to translate it into a policy that leads to action. — Hillary Clinton

It's clear that the true problems of our Nation are much deeper - deeper than gasoline lines of energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession. And I realize more than ever that as President I need your help. So, I decided to reach out and listen to the voices of America. — Jimmy Carter

I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around
the world, this administration has been the worst in history ...
The overt reversal of America's basic values as expressed by
previous administrations, including those of George H.W. Bush
and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others, has been the
most disturbing to me. — Jimmy Carter

[Jerry Brown] is California's way of celebrating the Year of the Child. — Jimmy Carter

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. — Jonathan Raban

I don't think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon. What happened is that Israel is holding almost 10,000 prisoners, so when the militants in Lebanon or in Gaza take one or two soldiers, Israel looks upon this as a justification for an attack on the civilian population of Lebanon and Gaza. I do not think that's justified, no. — 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

According to Gandhi, the seven sins are wealth without works, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principle. Well, Hubert Humphrey may have sinned in the eyes of God, as we all do, but according to those definitions of Gandhi's, it was Hubert Humphrey without sin. — Jimmy Carter

There's no doubt that usually a president's public image is enhanced by going to war. That never did appeal to me. — Jimmy Carter

My paintings have gotten to be pretty popular and I've taken a little bit more interest in painting the last few years. In fact, my novel that I wrote not too long ago, 'The Hornet's Nest,' I painted the cover picture for it and I do a good bit of painting now. — Jimmy Carter

The United States ... has a warm and a unique relationship of friendship with Israel that is morally right. It is compatible with our deepest religious convictions, and it is right in terms of America's own strategic interests. We are committed to Israel's security, prosperity, and future as a land that has so much to offer the world. — Jimmy Carter

In retrospect, I can see that President Brezhnev was quite proud of the limited agreement that he had concluded in Vladivostok; and to have a new American president come in and say, "That is not good enough - let's do much more, and do it quite rapidly," took him by surprise. — Jimmy Carter

I have never been disappointed when I asked in a humble and sincere way for God's help. I pray often. I think I pray more often since January 12th. — Jimmy Carter

I think, in many people's minds, the Confederate battle flag is not only a memorial to our ancestors, which is perfectly OK, but also a symbol of white superiority and an inclination for people to believe that even slavery would've been OK. — Jimmy Carter

The strategy worked like a charm, and in 1980 Jimmy Carter was swept away like offal by the "Reagan Revolution," which ushered in eight years of berserk looting of the federal treasury and the economic crippling of the middle class. That was the eighties, folks. That was the feeding frenzy of the New Rich, who found themselves wallowing in excess profits as their maximum income tax rate got chopped down to 31 percent and who were welcomed like brothers in the White House at all hours of the day or night. — Hunter S. Thompson

We believe that the first time we're born, as children, it's human life given to us; and when we accept Jesus as our Savior, it's a new life. That's what "born again" means. — Jimmy Carter

Europeans have always thought of U.S. presidents as either naive, as they did with Jimmy Carter, or as cowboys, as they did with Lyndon Johnson, and held them in contempt in either case. — George Friedman

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. — Jimmy Fallon

I think the difference the Jimmy Carter presidency and the Obama regime is navet and maliciousness. I think this is purposeful maliciousness. That's why what you're seeing now in this administration. I don't think they care for this country. And I think they're trying to make it into some kind of third-world socialistic cesspool. I think they are willing to get in bed with any dictator or despotic ruler that they see. — Allen West

Liberals are constantly wrong. In fact, that's how you rise to the top in liberalism, by being wrong. If you are wrong, and if you are consistently wrong, it's even better. You're really one of them if you're really wrong all the time. Look at Jimmy Carter. — Rush Limbaugh

Three American presidents-Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson-have asked the question: What do we get from aiding Pakistan? Five-Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama-have wondered aloud whether Pakistan's leaders can be trusted to keep their word. — Husain Haqqani

There's always an element of self delusion among people who believe they ought to be President. There's an underestimation of your opponent and an overestimation of your own abilities. This is compatible with being rich and powerful, the idea that we were blessed by God because we deserve to be blessed. — Jimmy Carter

I think all Americans believe in human rights. And health is an often overlooked aspect of basic human rights. And it's one that's easily corrected. The reason I say that is that many of the diseases that we treat around the world, I knew when I was a child. My mother was a registered nurse. And they no longer exist in our country. — Jimmy Carter

In the forensics novels the contents of a victim's pockets on the night of her death Say Something about her character. My Ford's Theatre ticket stub and Jimmy Carter key chain say that I am the corniest, goody-goody person in town. Luckily, I survived the evening unscathed so no one will ever find out about that losery Jimmy Carter key chain. — Sarah Vowell

It is interesting to note that an overwhelming majority of citizens in the world's three largest democracies have different religions: India (81 percent Hindu), the United States (76 percent Christian), and Indonesia (87 percent Muslim). Two of them have elected women as leaders of their government. — Jimmy Carter

When men in secular life, who might be religious or not, see women being treated as secondary in the eyes of God, they assume that it's OK for them to do it. — Jimmy Carter

Throughout my life, I've seen the difference that volunteering efforts can make in people's lives. I know the personal value of service as a local volunteer. — Jimmy Carter

Some devout Christians are among the most fervent advocates of the death penalty, contradicting Jesus Christ and justifying their belief on an erroneous interpretation of Hebrew Scriptures. "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," their most likely response, overlooks the fact that this was promulgated by Moses as a limitation- a prohibition against taking both eyes or all of an offender's teeth in retribution. — Jimmy Carter

New Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that he is open to letting transgender people serve in the military. He said there's no reason to prevent people from being generals just because of their privates. — Jimmy Fallon

A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It's a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity. — 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

The President publicly apologized today to all those offended by his brother's remark, There's more Arabs in this country than there is Jews! Those offended include Arabs, Jews, and English teachers. — Jimmy Carter

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. — P. J. O'Rourke

The decision to attack the entire nation [of Yugoslavia] has been counterproductive, and our destruction of civilian life has now become senseless and excessively brutal ... The United States' insistence on the use of cluster bombs, designed to kill or maim humans, is condemned almost universally and brings discredit on our nation (as does our refusal to support a ban on land mines). Even for the world's only superpower, the ends don't always justify the means. — Jimmy Carter

I toured in Europe first, before I did any touring in the U.S. It was with Jimmy Nail and others. — Deana Carter

War and good health are incompatible. There's no way we can go [eradicate diseases] into an area that is at war. — Jimmy Carter

My life since the White House has been much more all-encompassing, much more enjoyable. The main thing that I've acquired has been access to the poorest and most destitute, forgotten, and suffering people on Earth. It's not possible for a President to actually know them. — Jimmy Carter

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. — Matt Damon

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

Carter's renowned 1979 "malaise speech" [ ... ] is little remembered for what it actually was: a call to arms for fixing our nation's dire energy future. "Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977
never" [ ... ] Carter was going to use all the weapons at his disposal: import quotas, public investment in coal, solar power, and alternative fuel, and [ ... ] "a bold conservation program" where "every act of energy conservation ... is more than just common sense; I tell you it is an act of patriotism. — Rachel Maddow

Since 2001, the U.S. government has abandoned its role as a champion of human rights and has perpetrated terrible and illegal abuses in prisons in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, sent prisoners secretly to other nations to be tortured, denied the applicability of the Geneva Convention restraints, and severely restricted time-honored civil liberties within our own country. Certain political leaders of other nations, who are inclined to perpetrate human rights abuses to quiet dissenting voices and were previously restrained by positive influence from Washington, now feel free to emulate or exceed the abuses approved by American leaders. — Jimmy Carter

We reached a high point in my opinion with the passage of the civil rights legislation and Martin Luther King's success and the crusade of others. I think we kind of breathed a sigh of relief as if we had achieved the end of racial discrimination or white supremacy. — Jimmy Carter

A nation's domestic and foreign policies and actions should be derived from the same standards of ethics, honesty and morality which are characteristic of the individual citizens of the nation. — Jimmy Carter

Being confident of our own future, we are now free of that inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear. I'm glad that that's being changed. — Jimmy Carter