Jimmy Carter Inspirational Quotations

In this outward and physical ceremony we attest once again to the inner and spiritual strength of our Nation. As my high school teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, used to say: 'We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.'

Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.

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

It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature's gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.

We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.

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

If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.

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.

Go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is.

If you have a task to perform and are vitally interested in it, excited and challenged by it, and then you will exert maximum energy. But in the excitement, the pain of fatigue dissipates, and the exuberance of what you hope to achieve overcomes the weariness.

People would ask me how I could stand the long campaigning, how I could stand being charged with the responsibilities of a great nation, one of the most powerful and difficult jobs in the world. It wasn't any more difficult than picking cotton all day or shaking peanuts.

We will have an unchallenged, open, panoramic opportunity on a global scale to demonstrate the finest aspects of what we know in this country: peace, freedom, democracy, human rights, benevolent sharing, love, the easing of human suffering. Is that going to be our list of priorities or not?

It is clear that global challenges must be met with an emphasis on peace, in harmony with others, with strong alliances and international consensus. Imperfect as it may be, there is no doubt that this can best be done through the United Nations, not merely to preserve peace but also to make change, even radical change, without violence.