Top 300 Jimmy Carter Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 4 of 7

151. “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

152. “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

153. “We cannot resort to simplistic or extreme solutions which substitute myths for common sense.”

— Jimmy Carter

154. “Christians are supposed to be evangelicals. And I am. I am evangelical.”

— Jimmy Carter

155. “We are a purely idealistic Nation but let no one confuse our idealism with weakness.”

— Jimmy Carter

156. “We’ve uncovered some embarrassing ancestors in the not-too-distant past. Some horse thieves, and some people killed on Saturday nights. One of my relatives, unfortunately, was even in the newspaper business.”

— Jimmy Carter

157. “The respect for human rights is one of the most significant advantages of a free and democratic nation in the peaceful struggle for influence, and we should use this good weapon as effectively as possible.”

— Jimmy Carter

158. “We have the deepest respect and reverence for Islam and all who share the faith of Islam.”

— Jimmy Carter

159. “During the period of the Saturn-Apollo missions we were pilgrims in space, ranging from home in search of knowledge. Now we will become shepherds tending our technological flocks, but like the shepherds of old, we will keep our eyes fixed on the heavens.”

— Jimmy Carter

160. “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

161. “When the laws are written and administered by the most powerful leaders in a society, it is human nature for them to understand, justify, and protect the interests of themselves and people like them. Many injustices arise from this natural human failing.”

— Jimmy Carter

162. “Every advance in this half-century-Social Security, civil rights, Medicare, aid to education, one after another-came with the support and leadership of American Labor.”

— Jimmy Carter

163. “The oil lobby, perhaps the most powerful lobby on earth, is almost matched by hospital owners and doctors.”

— Jimmy Carter

164. “My position has always been, along with many other people, that any differences be resolved in a nonviolent way.”

— Jimmy Carter

165. “Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things – he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.”

— Jimmy Carter

166. “I think it will take years before we can repair the damage done by that statement.”

— Jimmy Carter

167. “Even for the world’s only superpower, the ends don’t always justify the means.”

— Jimmy Carter

168. “War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.”

— Jimmy Carter

169. “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.”

— Jimmy Carter

170. “I think doctors care very deeply about their patients, but when they organize into the AMA, their responsibility is to the welfare of doctors, and quite often, these lobbying groups are the only ones that are heard in the state capitols and in the capitol of our country.”

— Jimmy Carter

171. “The Carter Center has the only existing international taskforce on disease eradication. Which means a total elimination of a disease on the face of the Earth. In the history of the world, there’s only been one disease eradicated: smallpox. The second disease, I think, is gonna be guinea worm.”

— Jimmy Carter

172. “We all know grandparents whose values transcend passing fads and pressures, and who possess the wisdom of distilled pain and joy.”

— Jimmy Carter

173. “A nation’s domestic and foreign policies and actions should be derived from the same standards of ethics, honesty and morality which are characteristic of the individual citizens of the nation.”

— Jimmy Carter

174. “In a nuclear age, each of us is threatened when peace is not secured everywhere.”

— Jimmy Carter

175. “I am convinced that UFOs exist because I’ve seen one...”

— Jimmy Carter

176. “I hate to see complacency prevail in our lives when it’s so directly contrary to the teaching of Christ.”

— Jimmy Carter

177. “We believe that the first time we’re born, as children, it’s human life given to us; and when we accept Jesus as our Savior, it’s a new life. That’s what “born again” means.”

— Jimmy Carter

178. “Two problems of our country – energy and malaise.”

— Jimmy Carter

179. “I’ve used the prestige and influence of having been a president of the United States as effectively as possible. And secondly, I’ve still been able to carry out my commitments to peace and human rights and environmental quality and freedom and democracy and so forth.”

— Jimmy Carter

180. “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.”

— Jimmy Carter

181. “A lot of the things that we passed in the energy policy were embedded in law, and they resulted in tremendous reductions in waste of energy in all kinds of things.”

— Jimmy Carter

182. “The founding of our Nation was more than a political event; it was an act of faith, a promise to Americans and to the entire world. The Declaration of Independence declared that people can govern themselves, that they can live in freedom with equal rights, that they can respect the rights of others.”

— Jimmy Carter

183. “This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. It is widespread. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths.”

— Jimmy Carter

184. “I believed what my father taught me about the separation of church and state, so when I was President I never invited Billy Graham to have services in the White House because I didn’t think that was appropriate. He was injured a little bit, until I explained it to him.”

— Jimmy Carter

185. “Any system of economics is bankrupt if it sees either value or virtue in unemployment.”

— Jimmy Carter

186. “I’m not in favor of the government mandating a prayer in school because our country was founded on the fact that no particular religious faith would have ascendance over or preferential treatment over any other.”

— Jimmy Carter

187. “Well, you know, I had been a peanut farmer. I had – you know who was the first president – Democratic president I ever met? Bill Clinton.”

— Jimmy Carter

188. “I am not going to use the federal government’s authority deliberately to circumvent the natural inclination of people to live in ethnic homogeneous neighborhoods.”

— Jimmy Carter

189. “If any agreement between two nations is to last, it must serve the best interests of both nations.”

— Jimmy Carter

190. “I began to expand my personal service in the church, and to search more diligently for a closer relationship with God among my different business, professional and political interests.”

— Jimmy Carter

191. “Elvis was a symbol of the country’s vitality, rebelliousness, and good humor.”

— Jimmy Carter

192. “In this outward and physical ceremony we attest once again to the inner and spiritual strength of our Nation. As my high school teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, used to say: ‘We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.’”

— Jimmy Carter

193. “One of the turning points of my life was when I got my first bait-casting outfit.”

— Jimmy Carter

194. “If one of our fellow citizens can be executed with so much doubt surrounding his guilt, then the death penalty system in our country is unjust and outdated.”

— Jimmy Carter

195. “Some major churches overemphasize the importance of preaching as a means to increase membership and fail to reach out with compassion to their neighbors in need.”

— Jimmy Carter

196. “There’s always enough to fill up the headlines in a newspaper, the evening news broadcasts. I’m always grateful when I get the weekly news magazines on Monday morning and don’t see my picture on the front.”

— Jimmy Carter

197. “My paintings have gotten to be pretty popular and I’ve taken a little bit more interest in painting the last few years. In fact, my novel that I wrote not too long ago, ‘The Hornet’s Nest,’ I painted the cover picture for it and I do a good bit of painting now.”

— Jimmy Carter

198. “God is not my personal valet. God does not build a protective fence around my life, keep me from trouble, fulfill my personal desires, or guarantee my success. However, through prayer God offers me comfort, reassurance, satisfaction, courage, hope, and peace.”

— Jimmy Carter

199. “Communicating our questions, hopes, and fears in prayer makes them-even to ourselves-more open and clear...”

— Jimmy Carter

200. “Carter is doing a high-wire act over a cesspool, preaching all the way. Sinclair Lewis, thou shouldst be living in this hour. We have a Warren Harding impersonating Elmer Gantry.”

— Jimmy Carter