42 Quotes by Mario M. Cuomo

We believe in a government that is characterized by fairness and reasonableness, a reasonableness that goes beyond labels, that doesn’t distort or promise to do things that we know we can’t do.

Those two principles: We’re supposed to love one another and we’re supposed to work together to make the experience better. That’s all the religion you need, really, to make a success of this planet...

I somehow got this reputation of diddling and dithering. I don’t remember dithering at all.

We believe in only the government we need, but we insist on all the government we need.

Way down deep the American people are afraid of an entangling relationship between formal religions – or whole bodies of religious belief – and government.

Decide exactly what you want to achieve. Do you want to help people, or do you want to be powerful?

The values derived from religious belief will not – and should not – be accepted as part of the public morality unless they are shared by the pluralistic community at large, by consensus.

Most of us have achieved levels of affluence and comfort unthought of two generations ago. We’ve never had it so good, most of us. Nor have we ever complained so bitterly about our problems.

The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday they might force their beliefs on us.