Famous Quotes By Jimmy Carter

 

1. 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.
2. Because I know about the Holy Land, I've taught lessons about the Holy Land all my life, and - but you can't bring peace to Israel without giving the Palestinian also peace. And Lebanon and Jordan and Syria as well.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. I don't think that the total creation took place in six days as we now measure time. If we can confirm, say, the Big Bang theory, that doesn't at all cause me to question my faith that God created the Big Bang.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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
12. If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.
13. 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.
14. It's not necessary to fear the prospect of failure but to be determined not to fail.
15. 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.
16. 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.
17. Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.
18. My constant prayer, my number one foreign goal, is to bring peace to Israel. And in the process to Israel's neighbours.
19. 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.
20. Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.
21. Testing oneself is best when done alone.
22. The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.
23. The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.
24. 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.
25. 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.
26. There's no doubt that usually a president's public image is enhanced by going to war. That never did appeal to me.
27. 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.
28. 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.
29. We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.
30. We cannot be both the world's leading champion of peace and the world's leading supplier of the weapons of war.
31. 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.
32. 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.
33. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
34. 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.
35. When I was in the White House, I was confronted with the challenge of the Cold War. Both the Soviet Union and I had 30,000 nuclear weapons that could destroy the entire earth and I had to maintain the peace.
36. You just have to have a simple faith.