Top 300 Jimmy Carter Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “We have no desire to be the world’s policeman. But America does want to be the world’s peacemaker.”

— Jimmy Carter

152. “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

153. “Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern this Nation. This difficult effort will be the moral equivalent of war, except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not to destroy.”

— Jimmy Carter

154. “I don’t laugh at people any more when they say they’ve seen UFOs. I’ve seen one myself!”

— Jimmy Carter

155. “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.”

— Jimmy Carter

156. “We’ve become increasingly addicted to consumption of goods that we don’t produce ourselves, and a lot of the manufacturing has gone overseas.”

— Jimmy Carter

157. “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

158. “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

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

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

161. “Each of us must rededicate ourselves to serving the common good. We are a community. Our individual Fates are linked; our futures intertwined; and if we act in that knowledge and in that spirit together, as the Bible says: “We can move mountains.””

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

163. “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

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

— Jimmy Carter

165. “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

166. “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

167. “If I should ever decide in the future to discuss my deep Christian beliefs and condemnation and sinfulness, I would use another forum besides Playboy.”

— Jimmy Carter

168. “I have been in love with the Palestinian people for many years. I have two great-grandsons that are rapidly learning about the people here and the anguish and suffering and deprivation of human rights that you have experienced ever since 1948.”

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

173. “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

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

— Jimmy Carter

175. “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

176. “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

177. “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

178. “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

179. “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

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

— Jimmy Carter

181. “I have come to realize that in every person there is something fine and pure and noble, along with a desire for self-fulfillment.”

— Jimmy Carter

182. “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

183. “Earlier in my life I thought the things that mattered were the things that you could see, like your car, your house, your wealth, your property, your office. But as I’ve grown older I’ve become convinced that the things that matter most are the things that you can’t see – the love you share with others, your inner purpose, your comfort with who you are.”

— Jimmy Carter

184. “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

185. “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

186. “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

187. “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

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

— Jimmy Carter

189. “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

190. “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

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

— Jimmy Carter

192. “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

193. “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

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

— Jimmy Carter

195. “As we ask God for some blessing, we have an obligation to participate ourselves in the fulfillment of those dreams, aspirations, hopes, and ideas.”

— Jimmy Carter

196. “The love of liberty is a common blood that flows in our American veins.”

— Jimmy Carter

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

— Jimmy Carter

198. “He explains the true character of the God of love and reassures us that ultimate power on earth will be good, not evil. It is through God and his Son that I strive to understand the world in which we live.”

— Jimmy Carter

199. “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

200. “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