Mario Cuomo Quotes

Any open society that tolerates intolerance, sees tolerance disappear and the tolerant along with it.

Democracy depends on the idea that we hold each others’ right to express ourselves and be heard above our own desire to always get the outcomes we want. You can’t impose tolerance top-down.

We have taken the idea of tolerance so far that we have to put up with intolerance.

We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.

That's the beauty of democracy — you believe what you believe, I believe what I believe, and as long as we're not hurting each other, that's fine. Placing a value judgment on a person's beliefs has no place in a democracy.

Our institutions were not devised to bring about uniformity of opinion; if they had we might well abandon hope. It is important to remember, as has well been said, 'the essential characteristic of true liberty is that under its shelter many different types of life and character and opinion and belief can develop unmolested and unobstructed.’

Everybody has to choose his or her own way to climb a mountain. I don't give an opinion. But there needs to be enough room for others.

The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion.

We can believe as we want, but we should not force our beliefs on others.

Everybody has a right to like or dislike anything or anyone. From a flower to a flavor to a book or a composition but it is very sad that in our country we actually fight over such things in an unseemly manner.

The word 'tolerance' once meant we all have the right to argue rationally for our deepest convictions in the public arena. Now it means those convictions are not even subject to rational debate.

People should be respected for the strength of their convictions, and I also believe in freedom of expression.

In a pluralistic society, no group, no matter how numerous or powerful, has a right to prescribe a set of beliefs or a code of ethics for all.

The freedom allowed in the United States to all sorts of inquiry and discussion necessarily leads to a diversity of opinion, which is seen not only in their being different denominations, but different opinions also in the same denomination.

A free society means that you might have to put up with a lot of things you despise.

Isn't this country wonderful because you get the right to believe what you want to? But where we all get into trouble is when some people feel they have the right to inflict their beliefs on others.

This Vatican Synod declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all people are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that in matters religious no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his/her own beliefs

The Catholic and Protestant, the Calvinist and the Arminian, the Jew and the Infidel, may sit down at the common table of the national councils, without any inquisition into their faith, or mode of worship.

… tolerance is essential to protect one's own religion and one's own deeply held religious beliefs from external manipulation or efforts to overcome them, perhaps from other religions that are pushing in the opposite direction. That is the basic reason for religious tolerance.

The beautiful thing about this country is that I can be a Christian and feel free to do so. Or somebody cannot be a Christian and do whatever that entails. Or somebody can be a Christian and still be gay, and I support it.

I can try to convince somebody else of my beliefs, but I should not be imposing.

Each of us wants to be free. But if we want to be free, we also need to appreciate that others also desire the same thing.

I respect religion and all people's ideas of it. I think everyone should be able to do whatever they want to do with their own life. I just don't particularly like it when people try and force their ideas on others.

Everyone has their own opinions, and they're entitled to them.

Jews are no longer pressed and obliged to fight, hide or deny their Jewishness. What for? No one actually requires today to abandon the idiosyncrasy of some other culture or ethnic tradition. The great achievement of this last period is that we have been slowly, sometimes reluctantly, yet steadily, learning the art of living with differences.