Jimmy Carter Quotes

Since President Bush took office in 2001, this Congress has supported an agenda of democracy, freedom and expansion of rights for all peoples throughout the world.

The policy of freedom for Eastern Europe was for domestic purposes only for an America that did not want to face its limited power in the world.

I don't put any dates on these things. I don't say what is going to happen in one year, five years, ten years, but I am confident that the trend toward freedom in the Communist world is a basic truth.

We must recognize that our objectives and the Kremlin's objectives are irreconcilable. The Kremlin wants to promote Communist dictatorships controlled from Moscow, whereas we want, as far as possible to see a world of governments responsive to the will of the people.

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.

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.

It's a different outlook, and one that I understand. When you are a former member of the Warsaw Pact, when you have lived behind the Berlin Wall, when you have experienced the communist systems that existed in these countries, for them, the West represents hope.

From time to time, the irresponsible acts of the Cuban government remind us that this is far more than about the freedom of one country, but it really is about the stability and security of the region and the national security interests of the United States.

The fall of the Berlin Wall is very much a sequel, a continuation of the story about Eastern Europe emerging from war and Communism. The notion of presenting history as a story also appealed to me very much, since that is the way I look at the events I cover as a reporter.

I distinctly remember the vivacious optimism that inundated the United States when the Soviet Union imploded in the early 1990s. This was not glee generated by the doom of an implacable enemy, but thrill germinated by the real possibilities that the future held for freedom.

America's support for human rights and democracy is our noblest export to the world.

I think it is very important for any U.S. administration to be clear that America stands on the side of freedom and democracy and respect for individual rights.

More than forty years of Communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe resulted in an unhappy and artificial division of Europe. It is this dark chapter of European history that we now have the opportunity to close.

Sure, we could send in the troops, but the threat of communism wouldn’t diminish until the people’s standard of living was improved and the totalitarian countries of Latin America gave them more freedom.

The rights of human beings also constitute America's vital interests.

That should be a goal of U. S. policy—not to get along with dictators.

Non-recognition of the Soviet Government indicates no lack of sympathy for Russia, nor of appreciation of the fine qualities of the Russian people …. We earnestly hope for a reborn democratic Russia to which we can lend assistance without stint.

I think that when you look at our founding principles, it was based on America as a nation committed to universal human rights and a nation that was weary of foreign entanglements and foreign alliances that did not keep us safe or promote our interests.

We need a principled foreign policy that consistently and resolutely stands up for freedom.

America's foreign policy supports freedom, democracy, and human dignity for all mankind, and we make no apologies for it. The opportunity society that we want for ourselves we also want for others, not because we're imposing our system on others but because those opportunities belong to all people as God-given birthrights and because by promoting democracy and economic opportunity we make peace more secure.

America has not dictated to other nations. We have freed other nations from dictators.

[They let] friendship with the leaders in China obscure our devotion to freedom and democracy when those kids set up in Tiananmen Square, and I think it was wrong.

Since 9/11 the United States has been followed by countries with bad records, such as the former Soviet Union countries, into erosions of human rights. Because the United States has changed its standards it is undermining civil liberties elsewhere.

The trouble with Russia is not that she is socialist but that she is Russia.

There is always an element of realpolitik that has to be present in the conduct of any nation's national security affairs. At the same time, we have to also have a balance between realpolitik and Wilsonian principles of freedom and democracy and human rights. And maintaining that balance is the greatest challenge that we in the West, including the Federal Republic of Germany, have to face because it's many times a very difficult decision-making process.