Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just .as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.”
― Martin Luther King Jr

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand.

We do sometimes forget his accomplishments: Camp David accords, diversity of the judiciary, focus on renewable energy, but I think even he would agree his life of service and meaning came later. Godspeed President Carter.