Jimmy Carter: Nationality

Jimmy Carter is American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981). Explore interesting quotes on nationality.
Jimmy Carter: 306   quotes 70   likes

“Since 2001, the U. S. government has abandoned its role as a champion of human rights and has perpetrated terrible and illegal abuses in prisons in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, sent prisoners secretly to other nations to be tortured, denied the applicability of the Geneva Convention restraints, and severely restricted time-honored civil liberties within our own country. Certain political leaders of other nations, who are inclined to perpetrate human rights abuses to quiet dissenting voices and were previously restrained by positive influence from Washington, now feel free to emulate or exceed the abuses approved by American leaders.”

Jimmy Carter

Source: Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope

Feeling , Time , Country

“This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization.

We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some--perhaps many--may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:

This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe”

Jimmy Carter
World , Hope , Music , Way

“The erosion of our confidence in the future is threating to destroy the Social and the Political fabric of America. The confidence that we have always had as a people, is not simply some romantic dream, or a proverb in a dusty book, that we read, just on the Fourth of July. It is the idea of which founded our nation and has guided us in our development as a people. Confidence in the future has supported everything else. We've always believed in a thing called, progress. We've always had a faith, that the days of our children, would be better than our own. Our people are losing that faith. Fopr the first time in the history of our country, a majority of our people believe, that the next five years, will be worse than the past five years. We were taught that our armies were always invincible and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam. We respected the presidency as a place of honor, unitl the shock of Watergate. We've got to stop crying and start sweating. Stop talking and start walking. Working together, with our common faith, we cannot fail.”

Jimmy Carter
Children , People , Books , Faith

“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

Presidency (1977–1981), 1977

Strong , Help , Personality

“More than any other nation, the United States has been almost constantly involved in armed conflict and, through military alliances, has used war as a means of resolving international and local disputes. Since the birth of the United Nations, we have seen American forces involved in combat in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Grenada, Haiti, Iraq, Korea, Kosovo, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Nicaragua, Panama, Serbia, Somalia, and Vietnam, and more recently with lethal attacks in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and other sovereign nations. There were no “boots on the ground” in some of these countries; instead we have used high-altitude bombers or remote-control drones. In these cases we rarely acknowledge the tremendous loss of life and prolonged suffering among people in the combat zones, even after our involvement in the conflict is ended.”

Jimmy Carter book A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

Source: A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

Life , War , People , Birth

“Ours was the first nation to be founded on the idea that all are created equal and all deserve equal treatment under the law. Despite our missteps and shortcomings, these ideals still inspire hope among the oppressed and give us pride in being Americans.”

Jimmy Carter
Law , Hope , Idea

“All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our Nation and ourselves.”

Jimmy Carter

Presidency (1977–1981), The Crisis of Confidence (1979)
Context: We know the strength of America. We are strong. We can regain our unity. We can regain our confidence. We are the heirs of generations who survived threats much more powerful and awesome than those that challenge us now. Our fathers and mothers were strong men and women who shaped a new society during the Great Depression, who fought world wars, and who carved out a new charter of peace for the world.
We ourselves are the same Americans who just 10 years ago put a man on the Moon. We are the generation that dedicated our society to the pursuit of human rights and equality. And we are the generation that will win the war on the energy problem and in that process rebuild the unity and confidence of America.
We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self- interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.
All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our Nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem.
Energy will be the immediate test of our ability to unite this Nation, and it can also be the standard around which we rally. On the battlefield of energy we can win for our Nation a new confidence, and we can seize control again of our common destiny.

Freedom , Past , Future

“We are a strong nation, and we will maintain strength so sufficient that it need not be proven in combat – a quiet strength based not merely on the size of an arsenal, but on the nobility of ideas.
We will be ever vigilant and never vulnerable, and we will fight our wars against poverty, ignorance, and injustice – for those are the enemies against which our forces can be honorably marshaled.”

Jimmy Carter

Presidency (1977–1981), Inaugural Address (1977)
Context: The world itself is now dominated by a new spirit. Peoples more numerous and more politically aware are craving and now demanding their place in the sun – not just for the benefit of their own physical condition, but for basic human rights.
The passion for freedom is on the rise. Tapping this new spirit, there can be no nobler nor more ambitious task for America to undertake on this day of a new beginning than to help shape a just and peaceful world that is truly humane.
We are a strong nation, and we will maintain strength so sufficient that it need not be proven in combat – a quiet strength based not merely on the size of an arsenal, but on the nobility of ideas.
We will be ever vigilant and never vulnerable, and we will fight our wars against poverty, ignorance, and injustice – for those are the enemies against which our forces can be honorably marshaled.
We are a purely idealistic Nation, but let no one confuse our idealism with weakness.
Because we are free we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere. Our moral sense dictates a clearcut preference for these societies which share with us an abiding respect for individual human rights. We do not seek to intimidate, but it is clear that a world which others can dominate with impunity would be inhospitable to decency and a threat to the well-being of all people.

War , Idea , Strong , Fight

“The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language.”

Jimmy Carter

Presidency (1977–1981), Farewell Address (1981)
Context: I have just been talking about forces of potential destruction that mankind has developed, and how we might control them. It is equally important that we remember the beneficial forces that we have evolved over the ages, and how to hold fast to them.
One of those constructive forces is enhancement of individual human freedoms through the strengthening of democracy, and the fight against deprivation, torture, terrorism and the persecution of people throughout the world. The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language.
Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity, and who suffer for the sake of justice — they are the patriots of this cause.
I believe with all my heart that America must always stand for these basic human rights — at home and abroad. That is both our history and our destiny.
America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way round. Human rights invented America.
Ours was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded explicitly on such an idea. Our social and political progress has been based on one fundamental principle — the value and importance of the individual. The fundamental force that unites us is not kinship or place of origin or religious preference. The love of liberty is a common blood that flows in our American veins.

Color

“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.”

Jimmy Carter

Post-Presidency, DNC address (2004)

People , Truth , World , Soul

“It is good to know that our nation's defenses against a conventional attack are impregnable, and an imperative that America remain vigilant against threats from terrorists. But as is the case with a human being, admirable characteristics of a nation are not defined by size and physical prowess. What are some of the other attributes of a superpower? Once again, they might very well mirror those of a person. These would include a demonstrable commitment to truth, justice, peace, freedom, humility, human rights, generosity, and the upholding of other moral values.”

Jimmy Carter

Page 199
Post-Presidency, Our Endangered Values (2005)

Truth , Peace , Justice , Freedom

“We believe in the right of every country to be free from interference in its own internal affairs by another country. And we believe that world peace can come — which we both devoutly hope to see — through mutual respect, even among those who have some differences between us.
Our goals are also the same, to have a just system of economics and politics, to let the people of the world share in growth, in peace, in personal freedom, and in the benefits to be derived from the proper utilization of natural resources. We believe in enhancing human rights. We believe that we should enhance, as independent nations, the freedom of our own people.”

Jimmy Carter

Welcoming ceremony for Nicolae Ceauşescu of Romania (12 April 1978), Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Jimmy Carter, 1978 Book 1: January 1 to June 30, 1978, p. 735
Presidency (1977–1981), 1978

People , World , Peace , Hope

“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 country — energy and malaise.”

Jimmy Carter

Remarks at a town meeting, Bardstown, Kentucky (31 July 1979), referring to his The Crisis of Confidence address (he did not actually use the word "malaise" in that earlier speech), Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter, 1979, Book 2, p. 1340
Presidency (1977–1981), 1978

Problem , Night , Country

“Aside from the humanitarian aspects, it is well known that, under excruciating torture, a prisoner will admit almost any suggested crime. Such confessions are, of course, not admissible in trials in civilized nations. The primary goal of torture or the threat of torture is not to obtain convictions for crimes, but to engender and maintain fear. Some of our leaders have found that it is easy to forgo human rights for those who are considered to be subhuman, or "enemy combatants."”

Jimmy Carter

Page 129
Post-Presidency, Our Endangered Values (2005)

Fear

“I see an America on the move again, united, a diverse and vital and tolerant nation, entering our third century with pride and confidence, an America that lives up to the majesty of our Constitution and the simple decency of our people.
This is the America we want. This is the America that we will have.”

Jimmy Carter

Pre-Presidency, First Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech (1976)

People , Confidence

“I don't think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon.”

Jimmy Carter

As quoted in "The US and Israel Stand Alone" in Der Spiegel (15 August 2006) http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,431793,00.html
Post-Presidency

Thinking

“As many of you may know, my first chosen career was in the United States Navy, where I served as a submarine officer. At that time, my shipmates and I were ready for combat and prepared to give our lives to defend our nation and its principles. At the same time, we always prayed that our readiness would preserve the peace.
I served under two presidents, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, men who represented different political parties, both of whom had faced their active military responsibilities with honor.
They knew the horrors of war. And later as commanders in chief, they exercised restraint and judgment, and they had a clear sense of mission.
We had a confidence that our leaders, both military and civilian, would not put our soldiers and sailors in harm's way by initiating wars of choice unless America's vital interests were in danger.
We also were sure that these presidents would not mislead us when issues involved our national security.”

Jimmy Carter

Post-Presidency, DNC address (2004)

Men , War , Peace , Way

“Our nation should always derive its character directly from the people and let this be the strength and the image to be presented to the world — the character of the American people.
To our friends and allies I say that what unites us through our common dedication to democracy is much more important than that which occasionally divides us on economics or politics. To the nations that seek to lift themselves from poverty I say that America shares your aspirations and extends its hand to you. To those nation-states that wish to compete with us I say that we neither fear competition nor see it as an obstacle to wider cooperation. To all people I say that after two hundred years America still remains confident and youthful in its commitment to freedom and equality, and we always will be.”

Jimmy Carter

Pre-Presidency, First Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech (1976)

People , Youth , World , Fear

“The most serious and universal problem is the growing chasm between the richest and poorest people on earth. Citizens of the ten wealthiest countries are now seventy-five times richer than those who live in the ten poorest ones, and the separation is increasing every year, not only between nations but also within them.”

Jimmy Carter

Post-Presidency, Nobel lecture (2002)

People , Problem , Universe , Time

“National weakness — real or perceived — can tempt aggression and thus cause war. That's why the United States cannot neglect its military strength. We must and we will remain strong. But with equal determination, the United States and all countries must find ways to control and reduce the horrifying danger that is posed by the world's enormous stockpiles of nuclear arms.
This has been a concern of every American president since the moment we first saw what these weapons could do. Our leaders will require our understanding and our support as they grapple with this difficult but crucial challenge. There is no disagreement on the goals or the basic approach to controlling this enormous destructive force. The answer lies not just in the attitudes or actions of world leaders, but in the concern and demands of all of us as we continue our struggle to preserve the peace.”

Jimmy Carter

Presidency (1977–1981), Farewell Address (1981)

War , World , Peace , Way