Quotes from Jimmy Carter

Because I know about the Holy Land, I've taught lessons about the Holy Land all my life, and - but you can't bring peace to Israel without giving the Palestinian also peace. And Lebanon and Jordan and Syria as well.

I don't claim to be knowledgeable about theology. Most of my knowledge comes out of my experience and the lessons in the Bible. Every Sunday I'm home I teach 45 minutes and we boiled them down to one page for the new book, 'Through the Year with Jimmy Carter.'

It's not necessary to fear the prospect of failure but to be determined not to fail.

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.

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

Ever since Israel has been a nation the United States has provided the leadership. Every president down to the ages has done this in a fairly balanced way, including George Bush senior, Gerald Ford, and others including myself and Bill Clinton.

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.

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.

I think there ought to be a strict separation or wall built between our religious faith and our practice of political authority in office. I don't think the President of the United States should extoll Christianity if he happens to be a Christian at the expense of Judaism, Islam or other faiths.

Two problems of our country—energy and malaise.

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

My constant prayer, my number one foreign goal, is to bring peace to Israel. And in the process to Israel's neighbours.

I believe there is complete equality between men and women. And I believe those passages in the New Testament, not by Jesus, but by Paul, that say women should not adorn themselves, they should always wear hats or color their hair in church - things like that - I think they are signs of the times and should not apply to modern-day life.

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.

I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do—and I have done it—and God forgives me for it.

I've used the prestige and influence of having been a president of the United States as effectively as possible. And secondly, I've still been able to carry out my commitments to peace and human rights and environmental quality and freedom and democracy and so forth.

I think all Americans believe in human rights. And health is an often overlooked aspect of basic human rights. And it's one that's easily corrected. The reason I say that is that many of the diseases that we treat around the world, I knew when I was a child. My mother was a registered nurse. And they no longer exist in our country.

When I was in the White House, I was confronted with the challenge of the Cold War. Both the Soviet Union and I had 30 000 nuclear weapons that could destroy the entire earth and I had to maintain the peace.

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.

You just have to have a simple faith.

We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.

In religious and in secular affairs, the more fervent beliefs attract followers. If you are a moderate in any respect - if you're a moderate on abortion, if you're a moderate on gun control, or if you're a moderate in your religious faith - it doesn't evolve into a crusade where you're either right or wrong, good or bad, with us or against us.

We cannot be both the world's leading champion of peace and the world's leading supplier of the weapons of war.

I can't really criticize the Tea Party people, because I came into the White House pretty much on the same basis that they have become popular. That is dissatisfaction with the way things are going in Washington and disillusionment and disencouragement about the government.