Jimmy Carter Quotes About Human Rights

Quotes about: Human Rights

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

  Jimmy Carter

  Inspirational, Motivational, Real

  Jimmy Carter (1995). “Talking Peace: A Vision for the Next Generation”, Puffin

• Everyone has a right to peaceful coexistence, the basic personal freedoms, the alleviation of suffering, and the opportunity to lead a productive life.

  Jimmy Carter

  Peace, Freedom, Opportunity

• 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.

  Jimmy Carter

  Freedom, Fate, Rights

  Jimmy Carter's Inaugural Address, January 20, 1977.

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

  Jimmy Carter

  Inspirational, Motivational, Rights

  "Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter, 1978, Book 1: January 1 to June 30, 1978". Book by Jimmy Carter, 1979.

• I'd like to be remembered as someone who was a champion of peace and human rights.

  Jimmy Carter

  Rights, Champion, Humans

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians. If they did so, they couldn't be reelected.

  Jimmy Carter

  Suicidal, Rights, Israel

  "Jimmy Carter takes on Israel’s Apartheid Policies and the Pro-Israeli Lobby in the US". Interview with Nathan Gardels, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 12, 2006.

• I have been in love with the Palestinian people for many years. I have two great-grandsons that are rapidly learning about the people here and the anguish and suffering and deprivation of human rights that you have experienced ever since 1948.

  Jimmy Carter

  Rights, Israel, Years

• 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.

  Jimmy Carter

  Life, Spiritual, Patriotic

  "President, peacemaker, peanut farmer". www.cnn.com. October 11, 2002.

• The respect for human rights is one of the most significant advantages of a free and democratic nation in the peaceful struggle for influence, and we should use this good weapon as effectively as possible.

  Jimmy Carter

  Freedom, Struggle, Rights

  Jimmy Carter (2013). “Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President”, p.154, University of Arkansas Press

• We can drift along as though there were still a cold war, wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons that will never be used, ignoring the problems of people in this country and around the world, being one of the worst environmental violators on earth, standing against any sort of viable programs to protect the world's forests or to cut down on acid rain or the global warming or ozone depletion. We can ignore human rights violations in other countries, or we can take these things on as true leaders ought to and accept the inspiring challenge of America for the future.

  Jimmy Carter

  Country, War, Rain

  "Nobel Prize for Peace". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. October 25, 1991.

• 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?

  Jimmy Carter

  Inspirational, Country, Business

  "Jimmy Carter on The American Dream". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org.

• 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.

  Jimmy Carter

  Mother, Country, Children

• 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.

  Jimmy Carter

  Memorable, Commitment, Rights

  "The US and Israel Stand Alone". SPIEGEL Interview, www.spiegel.de. August 15, 2006.

• 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.

  Jimmy Carter

  Opportunity, Rights, Government

  The National Security Archive Interview, nsarchive.gwu.edu.

• I officially designated every US ambassador on earth to be my personal human rights representative, and to have the embassy be a haven for people who suffered from abuse by their own government.

  Jimmy Carter

  Rights, Government, People

  The National Security Archive Interview, nsarchive.gwu.edu.

• 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

  Believe, Independent, Rights

  Jimmy Earl Carter “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Jimmy Carter, 1978, Book 1: January 1 to June 30, 1978”, Government Printing Office

• The first year I was in office, only about 800 people came out of the Soviet Union, Jews. By the third year I was in office... second year, 1979, 51,000 came out of the Soviet Union. And every one of the human rights heroes - I'll use the word - who have come out of the Soviet Union, have said it was a turning point in their lives, and not only in the Soviet Union but also in places like Czechoslovakia and Hungary and Poland [they] saw this human rights policy of mine as being a great boost to the present democracy and freedom that they enjoy.

  Jimmy Carter

  Hero, Rights, Years

  "Interview with President Jimmy Carter". Index of coldwar Interviews. Episode-18, nsarchive.gwu.edu.

• On human rights, civil rights and environmental quality, I consider myself to be very liberal. On the management of government, on openness of government, on strengthening individual liberties and local levels of government, I consider myself a conservative. And I don't see that the two attitudes are incompatible.

  Jimmy Carter

  Attitude, Rights, Government

  Jimmy Carter (1998). “Conversations with Carter”, p.51, Lynne Rienner Publishers

• Prostitution thrives in the United States. We focus in this country on punishing the girls. For every brothel owner or pimp or male customer, there are 50 girls who are arrested for being prostitutes. Other countries have tried the other way around, and it works beautifully...they bring the charges against the brothel owners and the pimps and the male customers, and they do not prosecute the girls, who quite often are brought into that trade involuntarily. It works quite well, by the way.

  Jimmy Carter

  Girl, Country, Reality

• We cannot speak of human rights in other countries unless we are going to do our utmost to protect the rights of our own people here at home.

  Jimmy Carter

  Country, Home, Rights

  Jimmy Earl Carter “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Jimmy Carter, 1978, Book 1: January 1 to June 30, 1978”, Government Printing Office

• I am not here as a public official, but as a citizen of a troubled world who finds hope in a growing consensus that the generally accepted goals of society are peace, freedom, human rights, environmental quality, the alleviation of suffering, and the rule of law.

  Jimmy Carter

  Peace, Freedom, Rights

  Jimmy Carter (2014). “The Jimmy Carter Library”, p.1029, Simon and Schuster

• The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens. As Americans, we are blessed with circumstances that protect our human rights and our religious freedom, but for many people around the world, deprivation and persecution have become a way of life.

  Jimmy Carter

  Life, Religious, Freedom

• I would like people to remember that I kept the peace when I was president and I worked for peace, that I espoused human rights in its broadest definition, not only freedom of speech but freedom of assembly, freedom of worship and trial by jury but also the right of people for people to have a decent home to live, food to eat, employment, healthcare, self respect, dignity. So I think the broad gamut of human rights, peace and freedom. I would like to be remembered for those things to the degree that I deserve it and I still have a long way to go.

  Jimmy Carter

  Home, Thinking, Self

• At the Carter Center we work with victims of oppression, and we give support to human rights heroes.

  Jimmy Carter

  Hero, Rights, Giving

• I want to stress again that human rights are not peripheral to the foreign policy of the United States. Our pursuit of human rights is part of a broad effort to use our great power and our tremendous influence in the service of creating a better world, a world in which human beings can live in peace, in freedom, and with their basic needs adequately met.

  Jimmy Carter

  Stress, Rights, Creating

  Carter, Jimmy (1979). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter, 1978”, p.2163, Best Books on

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