17 Jimmy Carter Quotes on Politics

Jimmy Carter quotes on politics

10. Iraq is an unjust war. (spoken on the Diane Rehm Show; stated in articles written for NY Times; printed in USA Today)

11. This war has been motivated by pride or arrogance, by a desire to control oil wealth, by a desire to implant our programs. (on the Diane Rehm Show.

13. Ultimately, the basic issue is whether America will provide global leadership that springs from the unity and the integrity of the American people, or whether extremist doctrines, the manipulation of the truth, will define America's role in the world. At stake is nothing less than our nation's soul. But I am not discouraged. I really am not. I do not despair for our country. I never do. I believe, as I always have, the essential decency and compassion and common sense of the American people will prevail.

15. I can't deny I'm a better ex-president than I was a president.

17. Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.

19. Most Nobel Laureates have carried out our work in safety, but there are others who have acted with great personal courage. None has provided more vivid reminders of the dangers of peacemaking than two of my friends, Anwar Sadat and Yitzak Rabin, who gave their lives for the cause of peace in the Middle East.

27. Israel's continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land.

34. 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.

35. I don't, however, see anything wrong with Christians, Muslims, and Jews exhibiting their own faith in the political arena. Christ tried to change the society within which he lived. He didn't hold public office and wouldn't have. But you don't have to hold public office to try to change the basic policies of a country.

36. 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.

42. Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.

44. The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.

45. 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.

46. The government ought to stay out of the prayer business.

48. There was promulgation of false propaganda by the administration about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There was promulgation of false propaganda about Iraq as a base for Al Qaeda.

57. 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.

58. The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.