Jimmy Carter

Posted October 2, 2007, 10:06 pm by Growing Bolder



Jimmy Carter
Born: Oct. 1, 1924

Jimmy Carter is best known as the boy from a rural farming town in Georgia who went on to become governor of Georgia and the 39th president of the United States, serving one term from Jan. 20, 1977 to Jan. 20, 1981.

After the Age of Seventy

• He has served continuously on the Board of Directors for Habitat for Humanity and is a regular volunteer.
• He has supervised elections in fledgling democracies and helped diffuse international crisis in North Korea and Haiti.
• He and his wife Rosalynn run the Carter Center, which he founded in 1982, and they help improve the quality of life for people in more than 65 countries. The center has strengthened democracies in Asia, Latin America and Africa; helped farmers double or triple grain production in 15 African countries; mediated or worked to prevent civil and international conflicts; intervened to prevent unnecessary diseases in Latin America and Africa, including the near eradication of Guinea worm disease; and strived to diminish the stigma against mental illness.
• He is the author of 18 books, 15 of which were written after the age of 60, including his most recent, the controversial "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."
• At age 76 (1997), he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights and to promote economic and social development.
• At age 77 (1998), nominated for a Gramy for his reading of "Living Faith."
• At age 81 (2002), nominated for a Gramy for his reading of "An Hour Before Daylight."
• At age 87 (2007), won a Best Spoken Word Grammy for his audiobook "Our Endangered Values."
  

Quotes:

• "Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease."
• "America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America."
• "Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom. "
• "I've looked on many women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me."
• "War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children."

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