Jimmy Carter

You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.

— Jimmy Carter

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense... human rights invented America.

— Jimmy Carter

We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon.

— Jimmy Carter

I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times.

— Jimmy Carter

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

We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.

— Jimmy Carter

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

Well, as you know, there are many things in life that are not fair, that wealthy people can afford and poor people cant. But I dont believe that the Federal Government should take action to try to make these opportunities exactly equal, particularly when there is a moral factor involved.

— Jimmy Carter

I thought a lot about our Nation and what I should do as President. And Sunday night before last, I made a speech about two problems of our countryenergy and malaise.

— Jimmy Carter

According to Gandhi, the seven sins are wealth without works, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principle. Well, Hubert Humphrey may have sinned in the eyes of God, as we all do, but according to those definitions of Gandhis, it was Hubert Humphrey without sin.

— Jimmy Carter

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

Everyone who has run knows that its most important value is in removing tension and allowing a release from whatever other cares the day may bring.

— Jimmy Carter

Because they are usually free to love and guide and befriend the young without having to take daily responsibility for them, they can often reach out past pride and fear of failure and close the space between generations.

— Jimmy Carter

It is a time when we can, by default, live a passive and inactive life. But there is a wonderful, if riskier, alternative. We can take advantage of our newfound freedom and embark on new and exciting adventures. We now have time to fulfill some earlier ambitions. If we make a mistake, there are plenty of fallbacks. We need not be too cautious.

— Jimmy Carter