Jimmy Carter Quotes
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I come out of the environment of the Deep South, where I had seen the millstone of racial discrimination weighting down my people, both the black people and the white people; and I had seen the enormous progress that we were able to make after we removed the legal restraints of a two-class society, with the whites superior and blacks inferior. So I was very convinced before I became President that basic human rights, equality of opportunity, the end of abuse by governments of their people, was a basic principle on which the United States should be an acknowledged champion.
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This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation. The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.
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The first step in providing economic equality for women is to ensure a stable economy in which every person who wants to work can work.
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Unfortunately, after Sept. 11, there was an outburst in America of intense suffering and patriotism, and the Bush administration was very shrewd and effective in painting anyone who disagreed with the policies as unpatriotic or even traitorous.
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If I should ever decide in the future to discuss my deep Christian beliefs and condemnation and sinfulness, I would use another forum besides Playboy.
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I think all of us could insist on preserving the truth and preserving the peace. We could insist that political candidates tell the truth about controversial issues. And secondly, we should be sure to encourage our political leaders, after they're elected, to preserve the peace.
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All my playmates were black. I lived in a little community called Archery ph in a rural area. And I didn't have any white neighbors at all. So all my kids with whom I fought and wrestled and went fishing and worked in the field and so forth were African-Americans. And that was my life. So when I got to be school age, we had to separate during the daytime, but I always felt like I was in an alien environment when I was in Plains, Georgia with white kids. I was eager to get back where I belonged with my black playmates.
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We have seven and a half times as many people in prison. And we have eight times as many black women in prison now as we did in 1981, when I left the White House. So that's been one of the major concerns I've had as a non-lawyer, to criticize the American justice system, which is highly biased against black people and poor people. And it still is.
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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.
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Homosexuality was massively practiced in some of the conflicting religions at the time of Christ and even at the time of Christ, in Roman times show that homosexuality was widely prevalent. I think it's quite significant that Jesus never did mention it.
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I believe that we should do anything we can to minimize abortion and not to encourage it.
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There is no other even moderately equal abuse than the murder of little baby girls - nothing else compares with that, in horror.
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I have a very personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It doesn't depend on the fact that he can walk on water.
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We cannot resort to simplistic or extreme solutions which substitute myths for common sense.
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America has had the best university system in the world for a long time. And so we have been innovators, not only in the discoveries as proven by Nobel Prizes in chemistry and physics and that sort of thing, but we've been able to put that into practical application with new gadgets that people admire.
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At the Carter Center we work with victims of oppression, and we give support to human rights heroes.
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Being confident of our own future, we are now free of that inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear. I'm glad that that's being changed.
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In the final analysis, true justice is not a matter of courts and law books, but of a commitment in each of us to liberty and mutual respect.
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When I was elected President nobody asked me to negotiate between Israel and Egypt. It was not even a question raised in my campaign. But I felt that one of the reasons that I was elected President was to try to bring peace to the Holy Land.
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In many courts, plea bargaining serves the convenience of the judge and the lawyers, not the ends of justice, because the courts simply lack the time to give everyone a fair trial.
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I have nothing against a community that is made up of people who are Polish, or who are Czechoslovakians, or who are French Canadians or who are blacks trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods. This is a natural inclination... Government should not break up a neighborhood on a numerical basis. As soon as the Government does, the white folks flee.
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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.
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When I feel something very intensely or deeply or personally, I can go to extremes of self-expression or self-analysis by writing a poem - more than I can just talking to somebody or writing prose.
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Ahmadinejad is just a buffoon, sort of a clown on the international scene who tries to be provocative so he can get his name in the paper and his face on television.