Mario Cuomo Quotes

On why he once hit a catcher in the face mask while playing minor league baseball, CBS TV (December 30, 1984)

Democratic National Convention Address (1984)

The New Republic (4 April 1985)

That's not evasion, it's wisdom.
As quoted in The Quotable Politician (2003) by William B. Whitman, p. 25

As quoted in The Nastiest Things Ever Said about Republicans (2006) by Martin Higgins, p. 131

Address at Iona College (1984)
Context: How simple it seems now. We thought the Sermon on the Mount was a nice allegory and nothing more. What we didn't understand until we got to be a little older was that it was the whole answer, the whole truth. That the way — the only way — to succeed and to be happy is to learn those rules so basic that a shepherd's son could teach them to an ignorant flock without notes or formulae. <!-- p. 934

Religious Belief and Public Morality (1984)
Context: I can offer you no final truths, complete and unchallengeable. But it's possible this one effort will provoke other efforts — both in support and contradiction of my position — that will help all of us understand our differences and perhaps even discover some basic agreement.
In the end, I'm convinced we will all benefit if suspicion is replaced by discussion, innuendo by dialogue; if the emphasis in our debate turns from a search for talismanic criteria and neat but simplistic answers to an honest — more intelligent — attempt at describing the role religion has in our public affairs, and the limits placed on that role.
And if we do it right — if we're not afraid of the truth even when the truth is complex — this debate, by clarification, can bring relief to untold numbers of confused — even anguished — Catholics, as well as to many others who want only to make our already great democracy even stronger than it is.

Address at Iona College (1984)
Context: Tell me, ladies and gentlemen, are we the ones to tell them what their instructors have tried to teach them for years? That the philosophers were right.
That Saint Francis, Buddha, Muhammad, Maimonides — all spoke the truth when they said the only way to serve yourself is to serve others; and that Aristotle was right, before them, when he said the only way to assure yourself happiness is to learn to give happiness. <!-- p. 934

Democratic National Convention Address (1984)

Address at Iona College (1984)

As quoted in "Analysis : Tragedies of nature, terror leave vulnerable feeling" by Charles Passy, in The Palm Beach Post (12 September 2005) http://www.palmbeachpost.com/pbccentral/content/local_news/epaper/2005/09/12/m1a_vulnerability_0912.html

Address at Iona College (1984)

Religious Belief and Public Morality (1984)
Context: I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as a Jew, a Protestant, or non-believer, or as anything else you choose.
We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might some day force theirs on us.
This freedom is the fundamental strength of our unique experiment in government. In the complex interplay of forces and considerations that go into the making of our laws and policies, its preservation must be a pervasive and dominant concern.

Religious Belief and Public Morality (1984)
Context: Almost all Americans accept some religious values as a part of our public life. We are a religious people, many of us descended from ancestors who came here expressly to live their religious faith free from coercion or repression. But we are also a people of many religions, with no established church, who hold different beliefs on many matters.
Our public morality, then — the moral standards we maintain for everyone, not just the ones we insist on in our private lives — depends on a consensus view of right and wrong. 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.
That those values happen to be religious values does not deny them acceptability as a part of this consensus. But it does not require their acceptability, either.

Address at Iona College (1984)
Context: 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 closed circle of materialism is clear to us now — aspirations become wants, wants become needs, and self-gratification becomes a bottomless pit.
All around us we have seen success in the world's terms become ultimate and desperate failure. <!-- p. 934

Commencement address at Syracuse University, quoted in New York Times (12 May 1986)

Favoring life sentences without parole instead of capital punishment, as quoted in Time Magazine (2 June 1986)

Democratic National Convention Address (1984)

NBC TV (12 August 1986)

Address at Iona College (1984)

Address at Iona College (1984)

On reading a biography of Lincoln that “showed me the warts”
New York Times (14 September 1986)

Address at Iona College (1984)

Democratic National Convention Address (1984)

Religious Belief and Public Morality (1984)

Address at Iona College (1984)

On meeting with a group assembled by David Rockefeller, New York Times (14 September 1986)

As quoted in In God's Care : Daily Meditations on Spirituality in Recovery (1991) by James Jennings and Karen Casey

Address at Iona College (1984)

Calling for hiring of more police
The New Republic (4 April 1985)

About his father
Democratic National Convention Address (1984)

New York Times (12 February 1985)

New York Times (10 November 1986)

On his presidential plans New York Times (14 September 1986)

Democratic National Convention Address (1984)