Jimmy Carter Quotes

No matter how well formulated a foreign policy may be, it cannot be sustained without the informed consent of the American people.

In the democratic countries generally, the great body of citizens are refusing to wait until negotiations are over or policies are acted upon or even determined. They demand to know what is going on and to have an opportunity to express their opinions at all stages of diplomatic proceedings…. public opinion will be increasingly not merely the ultimate judge but an immediate and active force in negotiation.

In a democracy the People are entitled to determine the Ends or general aims of foreign policy.

One of the reasons we don't have a serious foreign policy is that we pay too much attention to public opinion.

U. S. Foreign Policy is usually largely reactive.

Foreign policy can no longer be the province of just a few elites.

We can't have an intelligent foreign policy unless we have an intelligent public, because we're a democracy.

Venezuelan interests are to be defended by Venezuela. The U.S. should defend the interests of the U.S. Where are the U.S. people, where are the intellectuals, who could put limits on their government?

One of my goals upon becoming Secretary of State was to take diplomacy out of capitals, out of government offices, into the media, into the streets of countries.

Foreign policy matters cannot be intelligently decided in a large general meeting.

That is where American foreign policy begins—with the interest, the aspirations, and the values of the American people.

Congress cannot—nor should it—run foreign policy on a day-to-day basis. That is a truism.

Democracy requires that those who bear the consequences of decisions have enough knowledge to hold the decision-makers accountable.

If the American people are going to support a policy than they had better be made to understand the rationale.

A promising process of dialogue can be disrupted by a premature or inadequate involvement of public opinion.

We are the only country that can provide world leadership, but we have to have the support of the American people to do it.

There are plenty who think a union should not speak out, fight for or criticize the foreign policy of our government; that it should be a matter of our government, right or wrong, in matters of foreign policy. We have never adhered to that belief. And we shouldn’t.

People tend to leave foreign affairs to governments because they think the leaders of government have all the information and know better.

For the things we [scientists] are working on no amount of protesting or fiddling with politics will save our souls. The accident that we worked out this terrible thing [nuclear weapons] should not give us the responsibility of having a voice in how it is to be used. The responsibility must in the end be shifted to the people as a whole and that can only be done by making the facts known.

Foreign policy should be strategic, not tactical.

When it comes to foreign policy, the American people will ultimately reward not the party with the most ambitious vision but the party with the most sober and realistic one.

Foreign policy mandarins often wish the public would leave them alone so that they can get on with the serious business of statecraft.

Just because you change administrations doesn't mean you have to change [foreign] policy.

Nor should we assume that a nation's foreign policy is simply the logical outgrowth of general national conceptions. It is rather the result of many diverse forces, practical as well as patriotic.

I believe that the American People have a right to know what was done in their name..