Jimmy Carter Quotes

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace.

Liberty has meaning only if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and a false government security blanket beckons.

You have a right to say what you believe, and I have a right.

We believe that peace is hard-won, That sometimes it is necessary to fight for peace. But more than that, we believe that Justice is more important than peace.

Our goals are the same as those of the U.N.'s founders, who sought to replace a world at war with one where the rule of law would prevail, where human rights were honored, where development would blossom, where conflict would give way to freedom from violence.

I absolutely believe that America has a responsibility, and the privilege of helping defend freedom and promote the principles that make the world more peaceful. And those principles include human rights, human dignity, free enterprise, freedom of expression, elections.

We [The United States] believe the Iranian people want a future of freedom and human rights: the right to vote, to run for office, to express their views without fear and to pursue political causes. We would welcome the progress, prosperity and freedom of the Iranian people.

I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men's rights.

Freedom, remember, is not the same as liberty.

Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law.

Freedom, liberty, individual rights, that idea of dealing with other people in a matter that is not initiating force against them, is critical to me.

Individualism regards man - every man - as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful co-existence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights - and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members.

I believe in freedom of expression, I don't believe in censorship.

I happen to believe that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality. It’s whatever God made you. It happens that I’m heterosexual, but I don’t care about that. I do care about protecting the rights of 10 percent of our population who are homosexual and who don’t have the ability to protect their rights.

Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.

Everyone has an equal and absolute right to sovereignty over his own body, his own property, and his own life, and to pursue his own happiness in any way that he chooses. No one has the authority to grant rights to anyone else, because human beings already possess all natural rights at birth. These rights include both personal and economic freedoms, and the only way they can be lost is if someone takes them away by force. The only right that an individual does not naturally possess is the right to violate someone else's liberty.

To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For he who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts.

I believe that every people and every nation has the right to be free and independent.

This is the beginning of a social movement in fact and not in pronouncements. We seek our basic, God - given rights as human beings...We shall do it without violence because it is our destiny. To the growers and to all who oppose us, we say the words of Benito Juarez: 'Respect for another's right is the meaning of peace.'

Foreign policy that is obviously guided by interests, but that is very much also committed to shared values, so we have a platform, democracy, freedom, respect of human rights that we would like to see respected all over the world and also, a peaceful world order.

America's founding Ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more - and nothing less.

I believe it is wrong to undermine public safety, and indeed public confidence in the concept of human rights, by allowing highly dangerous criminals and terrorists to trump the rights of the people of Britain to live in security and peace.

I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in - like peace and justice and freedom.

How blind to believe the civil rights movement ever ended. The civil rights movement never ends, and it never will. It has been marching since the beginning of time. Where Martin Luther King started is where Gandhi left off, and where he started, Abe Lincoln left off, and before that Whitfield all the way back to Moses. God has not moved. We have. But it is never too late. We are not at the mercy of these events. We can alter the course of history. We can stand against the dangerous arc of this story. But we need people who are willing to speak truth.

There is no inverse relationship between freedom and security. Less of one does not lead to more of the other. People with no rights are not safe from terrorist attack.