Jimmy Carter Quotes

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.

A joyous occasion is never quite as wonderful as when it becomes a memory.

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

The heartfelt sympathy and friendship offered to America after the 9/11 attacks, even from formerly antagonistic regimes, has been largely dissipated; increasingly unilateral and domineering policies have brought international trust in our country to its lowest level in memory.

There has never been any evidence that the death penalty reduces capital crimes or that crimes increased when executions stopped. Tragic mistakes are prevalent...It is clear that there are overwhelming ethical, financial, and religious reasons to abolish the death penalty.

It's important to meet with the people who can shape future events, and who might be causing a current problem. And to ignore them means that the problem will continue.

You always get back much more than you give.

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.

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'm 86, and too old to be President.

We've got to stop crying and start sweating, stop talking and start walking, stop cursing and start praying. The strength we need will not come from the White House, but from every house in America.

Nearly all inmates are drawn from the ranks of the powerless and the poor. A child of privilege frequently receives the benefit of the doubt; a child of poverty seldom does.

The blood of Abraham, God's father of the chosen, still flows in the veins of Arab, Jew, and Christian, and too much of it has been spilled in grasping for the inheritance of the revered patriarch in the Middle East. The spilled blood in the Holy Land still cries out to God--an anguished cry for peace.

When people are intimidated about having their own opinions, oppression is at hand.

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.

Faith implies a continuing search, not necessarily a final answer.

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

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.

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.

When I feel something very intensely or deeply or personally, I can go to extremes of self-expression or self-analysis by writing a poem - more than I can just talking to somebody or writing prose.

Even for the world's only superpower, the ends don't always justify the means.

The Carter Center has a policy of doing what others do not want to do. We do not compete with the World Health Organization, the United Nations or the US government.

After all these years, I still feel like a boy when I'm on a stream

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

I think the most challenging thing for me in my life and in the Bible is that we worship Jesus as the Prince of Peace. And America is constantly at war.

I am a nuclear physicist by training and a deeply committed Christian. I don't have any doubt in my own mind about God who created the entire universe. But I don't adhere to passages that so and so was created 4,000 years before Christ, and things of that kind.

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.

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.

Christmas has been a season of mixed interests and meanings, but the very foundation, of course, is its religious significance. No matter what other personal desires or crises we have faced, I've never forgotten that this is the time to celebrate the birth of the Baby Jesus, and the impact of this event on the history of the world.

Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.

Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease.

Ever since Israel has been a nation the United States has provided the leadership. Every president down to the ages has done this in a fairly balanced way, including George Bush senior, Gerald Ford, and others including myself and Bill Clinton.

I can't think of a man more worthy of the presidency then my good friend Sam Nunn.

Spirit is like the wind, in that we can't see it but can see its effects, which are profound.

I happen to be a scientist. My background is in nuclear physics. I was a nuclear engineer. But I don't see any incompatibility at all with my religious faith and God the creator of everything and the incompatibility between when the earth was created as specified in the Bible. I don't see any incompatibility there because those that were interpreting God's overall message didn't know anything about modern-day science.

Unfortunately, every American citizen takes the same position... that we don’t like negative advertisements. But they work! And, as you see, many a candidate has prevailed by tearing down the reputation of an opponent in a more advantageous position.

The reduction of nuclear arsenals and the removal of the threat of worldwide nuclear destruction is a measure, in my judgment, ofthe power and strength of a great nation.

Well, as you know, there are many things in life that are not fair, that wealthy people can afford and poor people cant. But I dont believe that the Federal Government should take action to try to make these opportunities exactly equal, particularly when there is a moral factor involved.

A country will have authority and influence because of moral factors, not its military strength; because it can be humble and not blatant and arrogant; because our people want to serve others and not dominate others. And a nation without morality will soon lose its influence around the world.

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

The Social Security program is a pact between workers and their employers that they will contribute to a common fund to ensure that those who are no longer part of the work force will have a basic income on which to live. It represents our commitment as a society to the belief that workers should not live in dread that a disability, death, or old age could leave them or their families destitute.

I don’t claim to be knowledgeable about theology. Most of my knowledge comes out of my experience and the lessons in the Bible. Every Sunday I’m home I teach 45 minutes and we boiled them down to one page for the new book, “Through the Year with Jimmy Carter.”

The election of Barack Obama was a very wonderful step forward for America, which has unfortunately been tainted by the ugly reaction of some right wing activist who are doing their best to cast aspersions on his character and to question his religion and citizenship.

I would describe fundamentalism as, first of all, a movement led almost invariably by authoritarian males who consider themselves to be superior to others and who have an overwhelming commitment to subjugate women and to dominate their fellow believers.

On both of my major trips to North Korea, the leaders of the country made it plain that they want to make progress towards doing away with nuclear weapons and towards ending the longstanding, official state of war which persists between North Korea and the United States and South Korea, a war which has continued since the ceasefire over fifty years ago. That sort of thing happens quite often when we meet with people who are kind of international outcasts with whom the government of the United States won't meet.

One of the greatest concerns that I had when I became President was the vast array of nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union and a few other countries, and also the great proliferation of conventional weapons, non-nuclear weapons, particularly as a tremendous burden on the economies of developing or very poor countries.

It's politically impossible for any member of Congress to make a public statement condemning or criticizing the policies of Israel. It would be political suicidal for them to do so.

If I become President, I'll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public, and the scientists. I am convinced that UFOs exist because I've seen one.