Welcome to our collection of quotes (with shareable picture quotes) by Jimmy Carter. We hope you enjoy pondering them and that you will share them widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician, businessman, and philanthropist who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as a Georgia State Senator from 1963 to 1967 and as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975. Since leaving the presidency, Carter has remained engaged in political and social projects as a private citizen. In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in co-founding The Carter Center.
Raised in Plains, Georgia, Carter graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1946 with a Bachelor of Science degree and joined the United States Navy, where he served on submarines. After the death of his father in 1953, Carter left his naval career and returned home to Georgia to take up the reins of his family's peanut-growing business. Carter inherited comparatively little because of his father's forgiveness of debts and the division of the estate among the children. Nevertheless, his ambition to expand and grow the Carter family's peanut business was fulfilled. During this period, Carter was motivated to oppose the political climate of racial segregation and support the growing civil rights movement. He became an activist within the Democratic Party. From 1963 to 1967, Carter served in the Georgia State Senate, and in 1970, he was elected as Governor of Georgia, defeating former Governor Carl Sanders in the Democratic primary on an anti-segregation platform advocating affirmative action for ethnic minorities. Carter remained as governor until 1975. Despite being a dark-horse candidate who was little known outside of Georgia at the start of the campaign, Carter won the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination. In the general election, Carter ran as an outsider and narrowly defeated incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford.
On his second day in office, Carter pardoned all the Vietnam War draft evaders by issuing Proclamation 4483. During Carter's term as president, two new cabinet-level departments, the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, were established. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), and the return of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama. On the economic front, he confronted stagflation, a persistent combination of high inflation, high unemployment and slow growth.
The end of his presidential tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In response to the invasion, Carter escalated the Cold War when he ended détente, imposed a grain embargo against the Soviets, enunciated the Carter Doctrine, and led a 1980 Summer Olympics boycott in Moscow. In 1980, Carter faced a challenge from Senator Ted Kennedy in the primaries, but he won re-nomination at the 1980 Democratic National Convention. Carter lost the general election to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan in an electoral landslide. He is the only president in American history to serve a full term of office and never appoint a justice to the Supreme Court. Polls of historians and political scientists usually rank Carter as a below-average president. Carter's activities since leaving the presidency have been viewed more favorably than his presidency itself.
In 1982, Carter established The Carter Center to promote and expand human rights. He has traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, monitor elections, and advance disease prevention and eradication in developing nations. Carter is considered a key figure in the charity Habitat for Humanity. He has written over 30 books, ranging from political memoirs to poetry, while continuing to actively comment on ongoing American and global affairs such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At 96 years old and with a 40-year-long retirement, he is both the oldest living and had the longest retirement of any U.S. president. He is also the seventh-oldest living former world leader.
Honesty, truthfulness, integrity, unselfishness--these are always there. And whenever a leader violates these basic principles, through arrogance or through ignorance, there's a derogation of duty.
Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of... permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.
With massive arsenals still on hair-trigger alert, a global holocaust is just as possible now, through mistakes or misjudgments, as it was during the depths of the Cold War.
Globalization is a policy, not an act of God.
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.
Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.
I think politicians really go with the tide.
People who have lust in their heart as just as guilty as those who commit adultery.
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.
But I am not discouraged. I do not despair for our country. I believe tonight, as I always have, that the essential decency, compassion and common sense of the American people will prevail.
One of the most serious problems that our country has inherited an unwillingness to talk to anyone who disagrees with us or who won't accept, before a discussion, all the premises that we demand.
I just look at death as not a threat. It's inevitable, and I have an assurance of eternal life.
War and good health are incompatible. There's no way we can go eradicate diseases into an area that is at war.
God wisely designed the human body so that we can neither pat our own backs nor kick ourselves too easily.
I advocate the modification of the '67 borders to let about half of the Israeli stay in Palestine.
We've become increasingly addicted to consumption of goods that we don't produce ourselves, and a lot of the manufacturing has gone overseas.
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.
If one of our fellow citizens can be executed with so much doubt surrounding his guilt, then the death penalty system in our country is unjust and outdated.
I personally have always been in favor of people who are gay being permitted to marry legally -- and I still feel that way.
The greatest discrimination in the world now is against poor people.
The heart and mind of every Muslim is affected by whether or not the Israel-Palestine issue is dealt with fairly.
We have no desire to be the world's policeman. But America does want to be the world's peacemaker.
I can't think of a man more worthy of the presidency then my good friend Sam Nunn.
The world is safer without Saddam Hussein. Certainly the people of Iraq are better without Saddam.
When our mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters are considered both different and inferior in the eyes of the God we worship, this belief tends to permeate society and everyone suffers.
The respect for human rights is one of the most significant advantages of a free and democratic nation in the peaceful struggle for influence, and we should use this good weapon as effectively as possible.
Even for the world's only superpower, the ends don't always justify the means.
There was never any question about the morality of hunting, but neither was there any acceptance of killing for the sake of a trophy.
Any system of economics is bankrupt if it sees either value or virtue in unemployment.
We have been involved in more wars, on a bilateral basis, since the United Nations was formed than any other country by far.
America is constantly involved in unnecessary wars.
The love of liberty is a common blood that flows in our American veins.
We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace. We can make these changes -- and we must.
I think my wife ... is sure of my loyalty.... She knows how hard I work. She knows how tired I am every night. She knows I have fifty or sixty reporters watching me day and night.
I see a lot of parallels between my candidacy and the Tea Party. I would not have been elected had there not been a tremendous amount of dissatisfaction and discouragement and disgust with what was going on in Washington.
I believe in the separation of church and state. The government has the right to say what happens in a civil case, like in a court house. And religious people have a right to say what happens in a church congregation. They are two completely separate things.
It's a terrible and tragic and counterproductive policy to avoid communicating with people who disagree with us.
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.
I guess my biggest failure was not getting re-elected. And I learned two things; one is that you ought not to ever let American hostages be held for 444 days in a foreign country without extracting them. I did the best I could, but I failed.
In many courts, plea bargaining serves the convenience of the judge and the lawyers, not the ends of justice, because the courts simply lack the time to give everyone a fair trial.
Thoughtful criticism and close scrutiny of all government officials by the press and the public are an important part of our democratic society.
I think a good husband has to depend on having a good wife.
We all know grandparents whose values transcend passing fads and pressures, and who possess the wisdom of distilled pain and joy.
In general the 53 countries on the continent of Africa have made great progress towards freedom and democracy, and in terms of electing good, sound administrations.
You have given me a great responsibility: to stay close to you, to be worthy of you and to exemplify what you are.
I officially designated every US ambassador on earth to be my personal human rights representative, and to have the embassy be a haven for people who suffered from abuse by their own government.
I am no big shot. I am not anybody's boss. I want to be everybody's servant.
I think it was fully justified after 9 11 to initiate a military action against Afghanistan, because we hoped to create a democracy, and have a flourishing economy, and to do away with al-Qaida, and to capture Osama bin Laden.
Ahmadinejad is just a buffoon, sort of a clown on the international scene who tries to be provocative so he can get his name in the paper and his face on television.
In the bible homosexuality is condemned, but along with divorce and greed and callousness toward poor people. So its elevation to a highest priority among some religious groups has been very disturbing to me.
Iran is an island of stability in a turbulent corner of the world.
This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation. The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.
The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family.
Faith implies a continuing search, not necessarily a final answer.
God always answers prayers. Sometimes it's 'yes.' Sometimes the answer is 'no.' Sometimes it's 'you gotta be kidding.
I believe that we are saved by the grace of God because he loves us provided that we have faith in Jesus Christ.
Elvis was a symbol of the country's vitality, rebelliousness, and good humor.
One of my greatest pleasures is being on the farmland that's been in the family since 1833.
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.
Communicating our questions, hopes, and fears in prayer makes them-even to ourselves-more open and clear.
One of our nation's greatest leaders of all time was Hubert Horatio Hornblower.
I enjoy walking by myself on the same paths where, as a little boy, I delighted in following my father around.
It is often just as important to be perceived as something as actually to be that something and, as a matter of fact, a candidate need not be anything ideologically at all.
There's no way to have a peace agreement unless the mediator or negotiator looks at both sides from an equal basis.
My wish is peace for Israel and for Israel's neighbors.
When I ran, I didn't have any money. Now, it requires raising hundreds of millions of dollars just to get the nomination, and I don't care to be involved in that process.
To me, Faith is not just a noun but also a verb.
For me personally and for most other Americans, this commitment to peace and diplomacy does not imply a blind or total pacifism. There are times when war is justified, and for many centuries the moral criteria for violence have been carefully delineated.
When the laws are written and administered by the most powerful leaders in a society, it is human nature for them to understand, justify, and protect the interests of themselves and people like them. Many injustices arise from this natural human failing.
I'm not in favor of the government mandating a prayer in school because our country was founded on the fact that no particular religious faith would have ascendance over or preferential treatment over any other.
Every act of energy conservation... is more than just common sense: I tell you it is an act of patriotism.
Some major churches overemphasize the importance of preaching as a means to increase membership and fail to reach out with compassion to their neighbors in need.
You can already download any of the religious texts onto electronic mechanisms like a Kindle. But I think many people prefer to hold a book in their hands.
I don't believe that Jesus would approve abortion except in the case of incest, rape or the mother's life in danger. But I had to enforce the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade so I tried to do everything I could to minimize the need for abortions.
On Saint Paul, he's probably one of the best theologians of all time, but I don't believe that some of his teachings are appropriate today.
That difference between the rich and poor is growing every month.
I believe men and women are the same and that women should be given an equal chance to serve God with men.
I have come to realize that in every person there is something fine and pure and noble, along with a desire for self-fulfillment.
As far as being in dangerous situations around the world is concerned, I always have a Secret Service detail with me as one of the privileges of a former President.
If I should ever decide in the future to discuss my deep Christian beliefs and condemnation and sinfulness, I would use another forum besides Playboy.
I'm much more introspective than I was, say, thirty years ago.