Jimmy Carter People Quotations

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.

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.

A fundamentalist can't bring himself or herself to negotiate with people who disagree with them because the negotiating process itself is an indication of implied equality.

When I was president, I announced and I still maintain that I can live with Roe v. Wade. I did everything I possibly could as president under that ruling, which I don't think ought to be changed, to minimize the need for abortions. I think every abortion is a result of a horrible series of errors on the part of people involved.

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.

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

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.

Nigeria is the most influential country on the continent, and under a civilian leader who is freely elected by the people and trusted by the international community, I think Nigeria will be even more influential,

I am deeply grateful that President Bush has taken this initiative and this bold step, because I know that some key people in his administration didn't even want to increase development assistance at all,

He had to do the same thing I did when I went to Washington, and that is to choose people who were very experienced in previous administrations, ... And I also chose a very experienced vice president, (Walter) Fritz Mondale, who kind of tided me over into my learning process when I got to Washington.

there is no guarantee in the U.S. that people of different economic levels have the same degree of counting in the balance.

The American people are losing confidence in the system, and they want electoral reform,

The overall concern is that 40 percent of the American people don't vote. Secondly, that there's a great deal of doubt in our country about the integrity of the electoral process. Those are the two basic issues. What can we do to address them? Obviously we want to have more access by Americans to the voting booth. And secondly, we want to make sure that the electoral process has integrity -- that it is not shot through with fraud.

We see the intense commitment of the Liberian people to have an honest, fair, open and safe election,

Bill Clinton brought insight wisdom and determination to bear on the issues that he addressed. He was a leader who could inspire other people to go beyond what they thought were their own limits, to join him in accomplishing great goals,

The total commitment by the people who live here and also by foreigners is to ensure peace in Liberia, and I believe peace will be maintained.

Thanks to our partners, we see the success of our work in the eyes of children who will never go blind and in the faces of parents who now have hope that their lives can improve. The outpouring of support underscores the interest people have in preventing unnecessary suffering for their neighbors.

As I am today, I was concerned about human rights, and I was concerned about the well-being of the working people of this country,

the way that people register, the way that people vote and to guarantee that when their votes are cast that they'll be counted accurately and to make sure that we don't discriminate against voters who might be poorer or live in a precinct that has a bad system.

It's emotional to see the appreciation and the dedication that these African people have when they learn what they can do themselves to correct an ancient problem that may have been there 10,000 years or more,

I personally had, at the beginning, some very serious reservations about this issue, ... This will be, I think, a move forward in getting more people to vote. It would not restrict people from voting. It will be uniformly applied throughout the country, and it will be nondiscriminatory.

I just hope we can avoid a policy of the United States that would bring more suffering and devastation on the people of Iraq, ... They have already suffered under a dictator.

the essential decency, compassion and common sense of the American people will prevail.

When people first vote for democracy, they have extremely high hopes, excessive expectations, and they're not realized. They don't instantly get richer and the schools don't instantly get better and the garbage isn't instantly picked up quicker. So they get disillusioned.

The world is safer without Saddam [Hussein]. Certainly the people of Iraq are better without Saddam.

I think the only way that political system can be corrected is for the American people to see very vividly that it needs repair. If things are going to worse in the future, the American people, in every congressional district in the land, might demand that reforms take place in the political system.

My life since the White House has been much more all-encompassing, much more enjoyable. The main thing that I've acquired has been access to the poorest and most destitute, forgotten, and suffering people on Earth. It's not possible for a President to actually know them.

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.

I officially designated every US ambassador on earth to be my personal human rights representative, and to have the embassy be a haven for people who suffered from abuse by their own government.

America has had the best university system in the world for a long time. And so we have been innovators, not only in the discoveries as proven by Nobel Prizes in chemistry and physics and that sort of thing, but we've been able to put that into practical application with new gadgets that people admire.

Quite often, the people who do leave their own nation and come to an unknown destination, like the United States, are inherently adventurous, so we've had that adventurous spirit that has embedded itself collectively in the American consciousness.

I have nothing against a community that is made up of people who are Polish, or who are Czechoslovakians, or who are French Canadians or who are blacks trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods. This is a natural inclination. [..] Government should not break up a neighborhood on a numerical basis. As soon as the Government does, the white folks flee.

My esteem in this country has gone up substantially. It is very nice now when people wave at me, they use all their fingers.

There needs to be a similar degree of flexibility and generosity in the recognition of the humaneness and worth of people who we generally consider as adversaries.

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.

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.

I don't laugh at people any more when they say they've seen UFOs. I've seen one myself!

The special relationship between the United States and Israel still stands. Our total committments to Israel's security and our hope for peace is still preeminent among all the other considerations that our Nation has in the Middle East ... But there need be no concern among the Israeli people nor among Jews in this country that our Nation has changed or turned away from Israel.

It is the fundamental right of every American, as guaranteed by the first amendment of the Constitution, to worship as he or she pleases... This legislation sets forth the policy of the United States to protect and preserve the inherent right of American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiian people to believe, express, and exercise their traditional religions

It is generally not known in the world that, in the years preceding 1916, there was a concerted effort made to eliminate all the Armenian people, probably one of the greatest tragedies that ever befell any group. And there weren't any Nuremberg trials.

It's a terrible and tragic and counterproductive policy to avoid communicating with people who disagree with us.

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

Our laws were not designed to accommodate three or four thousand refugees coming here per day. Our laws were designed for people to be screened in a foreign country, carefully catalogued, and brought here a few at a time. This just didn't happen.

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.

To work for better understanding among people, one does not have to be a former president sitting at a fancy conference room table. Peace can be made in the neighborhoods, the living rooms, the playing fields, and the classrooms of our country.

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

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.

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.