Top 300 Jimmy Carter Quotes (2025 Update)

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

— Jimmy Carter

2. “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

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

— Jimmy Carter

4. “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

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

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

9. “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

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

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

12. “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

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

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

15. “I will never lie to you.”

— Jimmy Carter

16. “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

Featured in: Strong Quotes

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

— Jimmy Carter

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

— 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. “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

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

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

25. “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

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

— Jimmy Carter

27. “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.”

— Jimmy Carter

28. “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

29. “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

30. “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

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

— Jimmy Carter

32. “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

33. “Israel’s continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land.”

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

35. “There’s no doubt that the Christian right has gone to bed with the more conservative elements of the Republican Party. And there’s been a melding in their goals when it comes to the separation of church and state. I’ve always believed in the separation of church and state.”

— Jimmy Carter

36. “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

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

— Jimmy Carter

38. “Throughout my life, I’ve seen the difference that volunteering efforts can make in people’s lives. I know the personal value of service as a local volunteer.”

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

40. “The abuse of women and girls is the most pervasive and unaddressed human right violation on earth.”

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

42. “You only have to have two loves in your life: for God, and for the person in front of you at any particular time.”

— Jimmy Carter

43. “I’ll never tell a lie. I’ll never make a misleading statement. I’ll never betray the confidence that any of you had in me. And I’ll never avoid a controversial issue.”

— Jimmy Carter

44. “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

45. “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.”

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

47. “We believe in separation of church and state, that there should be no unwarranted influence on the church or religion by the state, and vice versa.”

— Jimmy Carter

48. “I believe that we are saved by the grace of God because he loves us provided that we have faith in Jesus Christ.”

— Jimmy Carter

49. “We cannot be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of the weapons of war.”

— Jimmy Carter

50. “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