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James Earl Carter Jr. is an American retired politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981.
A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975 and as a Georgia state senator from 1963 to 1967.
Since leaving office, Carter has remained engaged in political and social projects, receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his humanitarian work.
List of quotes
| We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles. |
| America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America. |
| Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom. |
| For this generation, ours, life is nuclear survival, liberty is human rights, the pursuit of happiness is a planet whose resources are devoted to the physical and spiritual nourishment of its inhabitants. |
| Globalization, as defined by rich people like us, is a very nice thing… you are talking about the Internet, you are talking about cell phones, you are talking about computers. This doesn’t affect two-thirds of the people of the world. |
| We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children. |
| The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation. |
| 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. |
| There should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat. |
| To deal with individual human needs at the everyday level can be noble sometimes. |
| Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent. |
| War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children. |
| We cannot be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of the weapons of war. |
| We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams. |
| We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon. |
| Sadat was a great and good man, and his most bitter and dangerous enemies were people who were obsessed with hatred for his peaceful goals. |
| What has happened at Guantanamo Bay… does not represent the will of the American people. I’m embarrassed about it, I think its wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people. |
| Whatever starts in California unfortunately has an inclination to spread. |
| You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can. |
| 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. |
| You can’t 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. |
| You just have to have a simple faith. |
| Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease. |
| 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. |
| 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.’ |
| I hate to see complacency prevail in our lives when it’s so directly contrary to the teaching of Christ. |
| I have often wanted to drown my troubles, but I can’t get my wife to go swimming. |
| I look forward to these confrontations with the press to kind of balance up the nice and pleasant things that come to me as president. |
| I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over. |
| I think what’s going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A. I wouldn’t say it’s the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts. |
| I thought then, and I think now, that the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary and unjust. And I think the premises on which it was launched were false. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| If you’re totally illiterate and living on one dollar a day, the benefits of globalization never come to you. |
| Testing oneself is best when done alone. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| It’s not necessary to fear the prospect of failure but to be determined not to fail. |
| Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries. |
| 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. |
| People make a big fuss over you when you’re President. But I’m very serious about doing everything I can to make sure that it doesn’t go to my head. |
| Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future. |
| Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood. |
| If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement. |
| At the Carter Center we work with victims of oppression, and we give support to human rights heroes. |
