Jimmy Carter Quotes

I just think the most difficult thing to displace is privilege.

The real problem is that the way that power is given out in our society pits us against each other.

To unequal privileges among members of the same society the spirit of our nation is, with one accord, adverse.

The Reagan program is not working because the program is not fair - and, just as important, because the people themselves know it is not fair.

I don't think we live in a particularly equal society.

Everyone knows that life isn't fair. Saying it's not fair suggests that you think life is supposed to be fair, which makes you look immature and naive.

We have two evils to fight, capitalism and racism. We must destroy both racism and capitalism.

Whoever is content with the world, and who profits from its lack of justice, does not want to change it.

We're not going to create a more equal society by not prodding at it, are we?

There's some way in which we would prefer not to see very clearly the immense gifts and intelligence of some of the people who live in our most abject conditions. Maybe there are some things at work in deciding who gets to be society's winners and who gets to be society's losers that don't have to do with merit.

As a senior at Princeton, I felt like the whole world was open to me. In our country, that's not a given. We aspire to be a place of equal opportunity, and yet where you're born determines your prospects.

The margins don't get erased by simply insisting that the powers-that-be erase them.

... this is a grievance society and that if you want to get into its leading edge you pretty well have to be a victim.

For America's elite there is never accountability. That is for the rest of us.

I didn't believe one man should have so much services and another man should have none.

Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.

It is not fair that some people should have a better chance in life simply because of where they live.

You can have class in the ghetto and trash in the White House.

All men are created equal. Some, it appears, are created a little more equal than others.

Justice is not available to all equally; it is something that many of us must struggle to achieve.

The inequality that exists today, … derives less from the unequal availability of opportunity than from the unequal ability to exploit opportunity …

You are exacerbating inequality rather than opening up opportunity.

Resentment — that feeling when the modern promise of equality collides with massive disparities of power, education, status and property ownership.

My perspective is never gonna change on that... We've got to do a much better job to take care of poor people, because you cannot put all the poor people in bad neighborhoods, send them to bad schools, and say, 'Good luck in life.' That's just not right.

The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own time.