Jimmy Carter

The Nobel Peace Prize 2002

USA president. Nuclear physicist. Peanut farmer. Devout Christian. Egypt-Israel peace agreement. Carter Center promoting human rights. Ceased neutron bomb development. Protested Soviets invading Afghanistan. Panama Canal treaty. Established Departments of Energy, Education. Mental Health Systems Act. Housing. Jimmy Carter smile!

“We must adjust to changing times while holding unchanging principles.”

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.”

When I was a young boy, this same teacher also introduced me to Leo Tolstoy’s novel, ‘War and Peace.’ She interpreted that powerful narrative as a reminder that the simple human attributes of goodness and truth can overcome great power. She also taught us that an individual is not swept along on a tide of inevitability but can influence even the greatest human events.

To deal with individual human needs at the everyday level can be noble sometimes.

I remember the last three days that I was president; I never went to bed at all. I never went to bed until we had negotiated the final release of the hostages. Notes: Unfortunately, Khomeini announced the release of hostages one minute after Jimmy Carer’s successor Ronal Reagan was sworn in as president.

I wish I had known when I was in the White House what I know now about the Third World.

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.

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

You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.

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

There is a common perception among college administrators that they should conceal the high level of sexual assaults that take place on their campuses because it would bring discredit to the university, bring them a bad name if it was publicized.

My position has always been, along with many other people, that any differences be resolved in a nonviolent way.

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.

Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.

We have a tendency to condemn people who are different from us, to define their sins as paramount and our own sinfulness as being insignificant.

I will never tell a lie. I will never make a misleading statement. I will never betray the confidence that any of you had in me. And I will never avoid a controversial issue.

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.

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

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.

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

Globalization, as defined by rich people like us, is a very nice thing... you are talking about the Internet, you are talking about cell phones, you are talking about computers. This does not affect two-thirds of the people of the world.

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

On balance, my life has been a constant stream of blessings rather than disappointments and failures and tragedies.

There is always an element of self-delusion among people who believe they ought to be President. There is an underestimation of your opponent and an overestimation of your own abilities.

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

My decision to register women confirms what is already obvious throughout our society - that women are now providing all types of skills in every profession. The military should be no exception.

There is no doubt that usually a president's public image is enhanced by going to war. That never did appeal to me.

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

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.

I have often wanted to drown my troubles, but I cannot get my wife to go swimming.

“One comes to be of just such stuff as that on which the mind is set” - Maithri Upanishath, VI.34:3

“…the peace that is found in libraries and laboratories…” - Louis Pasteur

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