You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Ability, Determination
Those who start war often know that because of their high political position their own lives will not be in danger on the Diane Rehm Show.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Guilt
You have given me a great responsibility: to stay close to you, to be worthy of you and to exemplify what you are.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Responsibility
We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Miscellaneous
If you’re totally illiterate and living on one dollar a day, the benefits of globalization never come to you.
—Jimmy Carter
I thought a lot about our Nation and what I should do as President. And Sunday night before last, I made a speech about two problems of our countryenergy and malaise.
—Jimmy Carter
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.
—Jimmy Carter
America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense… human rights invented America.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Humanity
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.
—Jimmy Carter
Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern this Nation. This difficult effort will be the moral equivalent of war, except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not to destroy.
—Jimmy Carter
We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Change
One of the most basic principles for making and keeping peace within and between nations… is that in political, military, moral, and spiritual confrontations, there should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Nation
Globalization is a policy, not an act of God.
—Jimmy Carter
Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Nature, Wilderness
I have looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. God recognizes I will do this and forgives me.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Desires, Forgiveness
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
Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: One liners
Well, as you know, there are many things in life that are not fair, that wealthy people can afford and poor people can’t. But I don’t believe that the Federal Government should take action to try to make these opportunities exactly equal, particularly when there is a moral factor involved.
—Jimmy Carter
To me faith is not just a noun but also a verb.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Faith
Everyone who has run knows that its most important value is in removing tension and allowing a release from whatever other cares the day may bring.
—Jimmy Carter
If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Achievement, Accomplishment
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
Topics: Nation, Nationalism, Nations, Nationality
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.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Justice
We’ve uncovered some embarrassing ancestors in the not-too-distant past. Some horse thieves, and some people killed on Saturday nights. One of my relatives, unfortunately, was even in the newspaper business.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Media
Wherever life takes us, there are always moments of wonder.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Wonder
We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Life, Living, Nature
Our American values are not luxuries but necessities, not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself. Our common vision of a free and just society is our greatest source of cohesion at home and strength abroad, greater than the bounty of our material blessings.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Values
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.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Government, Experience
The test of a government is not how popular it is with the powerful and privileged few but how honestly and fairly it deals with the many who must depend on it.
—Jimmy Carter
Topics: Honesty
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
Topics: War
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Ronald Reagan American Head of State
- Lyndon B. Johnson American Head of State
- Herbert Hoover American Statesman
- Bill Clinton American Head of State
- George H. W. Bush American Head of State
- John F. Kennedy American Head of State
- Richard Nixon American Head of State
- Theodore Roosevelt American Head of State
- Charles G. Dawes American Diplomat, Politician
- Woodrow Wilson American Head of State
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