Top 300 Jimmy Carter Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “I think there ought to be a strict separation or wall built between our religious faith and our practice of political authority in office. I don’t think the President of the United States should extoll Christianity if he happens to be a Christian at the expense of Judaism, Islam or other faiths.”

— Jimmy Carter

102. “No matter where you go in the world in any country in Africa or Latin America and other place, you will find that China is very deeply involved in the affairs of that country.”

— Jimmy Carter

103. “Hubert Horatio Hornblower...”

— Jimmy Carter

104. “I have often wanted to drown my troubles, but I can’t get my wife to go swimming.”

— Jimmy Carter

105. “History teaches, perhaps, very few clear lessons. But surely one such lesson learned by the world at great cost is that aggression, unopposed, becomes a contagious disease.”

— Jimmy Carter

106. “In this great country of ours, it is inexcusable that so many children grow up in poverty and despair. The well-being of our children must be the national priority and the responsibility of every individual...”

— Jimmy Carter

107. “We should live our lives as though Christ was coming this afternoon.”

— Jimmy Carter

108. “My proudest accomplishment was that I never dropped a bomb, fired a bullet, or shot a missile.”

— Jimmy Carter

109. “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.”

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

111. “Two centuries ago our nation’s birth was a milestone in the long quest for freedom, but the bold and brilliant dream which excited the founders of our nation still awaits its consummation. I have no new dream to set forth today, but rather urge a fresh faith in the old dream.”

— Jimmy Carter

112. “No poor, rural, weak, or black person should ever again have to bear the additional burden of being deprived of the opportunity for an education, a job, or simple justice.”

— Jimmy Carter

113. “Being president is as difficult as writing the perfect poem. And being president is as effortless as writing the perfect poem. Always a Reckoning, my first collection of poetry, was described by Booklist as ‘keenly evocative.’”

— Jimmy Carter

114. “It is difficult for the common good to prevail against the intense concentration of those who have a special interest, especially if the decisions are made behind locked doors.”

— Jimmy Carter

115. “In the final analysis, true justice is not a matter of courts and law books, but of a commitment in each of us to liberty and mutual respect.”

— Jimmy Carter

116. “I just look at death as not a threat. It’s inevitable, and I have an assurance of eternal life.”

— Jimmy Carter

117. “We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace. We can make these changes – and we must.”

— Jimmy Carter

118. “Habitat has opened up unprecedented opportunities for me to cross the chasm that separates those of us who are free, safe, financially secure, well fed and housed, and influential enough to shape our own destiny from our neighbors who enjoy few, if any, of these advantages of life.”

— Jimmy Carter

119. “We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this Nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face.”

— Jimmy Carter

120. “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

121. “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...”

— Jimmy Carter

122. “Habitat gives us an opportunity which is very difficult to find: to reach out and work side by side with those who never have had a decent home-but work with them on a completely equal basis. It’s not a big-shot, little-shot relationship. It’s a sense of equality.”

— Jimmy Carter

123. “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

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

— Jimmy Carter

125. “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.”

— Jimmy Carter

126. “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.”

— Jimmy Carter

127. “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.”

— Jimmy Carter

128. “We have a special relationship with Israel. It’s absolutely crucial that no one in our country or around the world ever doubt that our number one committment in the Middle East is to protect the right of Israel to exist, to exist permanently, and to exist in peace. It’s a special relationship.”

— Jimmy Carter

129. “Somebody said to me, ‘But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.’ That’s a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, ‘Now, let’s write a swimming pool.’ Paul McCartney I have often wanted to drown my troubles, but I can’t get my wife to go swimming.”

— Jimmy Carter

130. “The first time I ever saw snow skis was when I was 62 years old and that was 19 years ago and I’m still skiing. So, we’ll be skiing with some very close friends of the Carter Center letting them know what the Carter Center is doing around the world. We have programs in over 65 countries.”

— Jimmy Carter

131. “Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.”

— Jimmy Carter

132. “America has always been a country of innovation and dynamism, entrepreneurship. And I think that one of the things that has made our country great too is its heterogeneous population where people come here from all over the world.”

— Jimmy Carter

133. “All I want is the same thing you want. To have a nation with a government that is as good and honest and decent and competent and compassionate and as filled with love as are the American people.”

— Jimmy Carter

134. “Later, when Bob Hope came to visit us, he made a wisecrack about being a Republican and I announced that he would be moving from the Lincoln Bedroom to sleep in Amy’s tree house.”

— Jimmy Carter

135. “But love must be aggressively translated into simple justice.”

— Jimmy Carter

136. “Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease.”

— Jimmy Carter

137. “Being confident of our own future, we are now free of that inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear. I’m glad that that’s being changed.”

— Jimmy Carter

138. “You can not divorce religious belief and public service. I’ve never detected any conflict between God’s will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.”

— Jimmy Carter

139. “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.”

— Jimmy Carter

140. “America has no functioning democracy at this moment.”

— Jimmy Carter

141. “Last night when I was commenting on the FBI and the CIA, the sound went off for 27 minutes. I should have known better.”

— Jimmy Carter

142. “In the bible homosexuality is condemned, but along with divorce and greed and callousness toward poor people. So its elevation to a highest priority among some religious groups has been very disturbing to me.”

— Jimmy Carter

143. “I can’t deny I’m a better ex-president than I was a president.”

— Jimmy Carter

144. “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.”

— Jimmy Carter

145. “The heart and mind of every Muslim is affected by whether or not the Israel-Palestine issue is dealt with fairly.”

— Jimmy Carter

146. “Testing oneself is best when done alone.”

— Jimmy Carter

147. “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.”

— Jimmy Carter

148. “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.”

— Jimmy Carter

149. “We have no desire to be the world’s policeman. But America does want to be the world’s peacemaker.”

— Jimmy Carter

150. “There was never any question about the morality of hunting, but neither was there any acceptance of killing for the sake of a trophy.”

— Jimmy Carter