Top 300 Jimmy Carter Quotes (2023 Update)

1. “We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.”

— Jimmy Carter

2. “Let us learn together and laugh together and work together and pray together, confident that in the end we will triumph together in the right.”

— Jimmy Carter

3. “We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.”

— Jimmy Carter

4. “You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.”

— Jimmy Carter

5. “Go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.”

— Jimmy Carter

6. “The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens.”

— Jimmy Carter

7. “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.”

— Jimmy Carter

8. “Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.”

— Jimmy Carter

9. “The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices.”

— Jimmy Carter

10. “I have one life and one chance to make it count for something... My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”

— Jimmy Carter

11. “Whether the borders that divide us are picket fences or national boundaries, we are all neighbors in a global community.”

— Jimmy Carter

12. “We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.”

— Jimmy Carter

13. “Human identity is no longer defined by what one does but rather by what one owns.”

— Jimmy Carter

14. “Everyone has a right to peaceful coexistence, the basic personal freedoms, the alleviation of suffering, and the opportunity to lead a productive life...”

— Jimmy Carter

15. “I will never lie to you.”

— Jimmy Carter

16. “The truth is that male religious leaders have had – and still have – an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter.”

— Jimmy Carter

17. “To be true to ourselves, we must be true to others.”

— Jimmy Carter

18. “Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.”

— Jimmy Carter

19. “God always answers prayers. Sometimes it’s ‘yes.’ Sometimes the answer is ‘no.’ Sometimes it’s ’you gotta be kidding.”

— Jimmy Carter

20. “We are of course a nation of differences. Those differences don’t make us weak. They’re the source of our strength.”

— Jimmy Carter

21. “Life is just too short to go quail hunting with the wrong people.”

— Jimmy Carter

22. “I am no big shot. I am not anybody’s boss. I want to be everybody’s servant.”

— Jimmy Carter

23. “We have a tendency to condemn people who are different from us, to define their sins as paramount and our own sinfulness as being insignificant.”

— Jimmy Carter

24. “We’ll never know whether something new and wonderful is possible unless we try. Let’s scratch our heads, stretch our minds, be adventurous! Serve God with boldness, and who knows what wonders the Lord may work?”

— Jimmy Carter

25. “If you’re totally illiterate and living on one dollar a day, the benefits of globalization never come to you.”

— Jimmy Carter

26. “My esteem in this country has gone up substantially. It is very nice now when people wave at me, they use all their fingers.”

— Jimmy Carter

27. “If you don’t want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying that you want a country based on Christian values. Because you don’t!”

— Jimmy Carter

28. “We know that a peaceful world cannot long exist, one-third rich and two-thirds hungry.”

— Jimmy Carter

29. “To me, Faith is not just a noun but also a verb.”

— Jimmy Carter

30. “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.”

— Jimmy Carter

31. “I’m a peanut farmer at heart, still grow peanuts on my farm in Georgia.”

— Jimmy Carter

32. “The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.”

— Jimmy Carter

33. “America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.”

— Jimmy Carter

34. “I’ve never won an argument with my wife; and the only time I thought I had I found out the argument wasn’t over yet.”

— Jimmy Carter

35. “Whatever starts in California unfortunately has an inclination to spread.”

— Jimmy Carter

36. “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

37. “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.”

— Jimmy Carter

38. “God wisely designed the human body so that we can neither pat our own backs nor kick ourselves too easily.”

— Jimmy Carter

39. “I let God be the judge and I believe that we worship a just and fair God who won’t punish innocent people unnecessarily.”

— Jimmy Carter

40. “Too many of us now tend to worship self indulgence and consumption.”

— Jimmy Carter

41. “I have never been happier, more exhilarated, at peace, rested, inspired, and aware of the grandeur of the universe and the greatness of God than when I find myself in a natural setting not much changed from the way He made it.”

— Jimmy Carter

42. “You always get back much more than you give.”

— Jimmy Carter

43. “Iran is an island of stability in a turbulent corner of the world.”

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

45. “Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.”

— Jimmy Carter

46. “Our Income Tax System is a disgrace to the human race.”

— Jimmy Carter

47. “Jerry Falwell can go straight to hell – and I mean that in a Christian way.”

— Jimmy Carter

48. “Today, in directly harnessing the power of the Sun, we’re taking the energy that God gave us, the most renewable energy that we will ever see, and using it to replace our dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.”

— Jimmy Carter

49. “When combined, the small individual contributors of caring, friendship, forgiveness, and love, each of us different from our next-door neighbors, can form a phalanx, an army, with great capability.”

— Jimmy Carter

50. “We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.”

— Jimmy Carter