"Every time I've done something that doesn't feel right, it's ended up not being right"
About this Quote
The line captures the union of intuition and ethics as learned through hard experience. Coming from Mario Cuomo, the three-term New York governor renowned for moral rhetoric and careful deliberation, it reads less like a slogan and more like field-tested guidance for anyone under pressure to compromise. Cuomo built his public identity around conscience, from the soaring language of his 1984 Democratic National Convention address to his principled stands that often defied political convenience. He understood how public life tempts leaders to rationalize shortcuts, and how the inner twinge that signals misalignment rarely lies.
"Does not feel right" is not a plea for impulsiveness or sentimentality. It points to a cultivated moral sense, the product of values, experience, and pattern recognition. People accumulate a body of tacit knowledge about what leads to harm or betrayal, and the body reacts before the mind finishes its justifications. Neuroscientists call it a somatic marker; moral philosophers call it conscience. Cuomo is saying that when he overrode that signal, outcomes and ethics converged in the same judgment: it was wrong in fact and in principle.
Politics provides vivid examples. Expedient deals that mortgage future credibility, symbolic gestures that soothe today but leave injustice intact, quiet compromises that trade away the trust of constituents for short-term wins. The unease is the warning label. Cuomo’s career, including his high-profile defense of compassion and restraint in criminal justice and social policy, shows a consistent belief that doing what merely works is not the same as doing what is right, and that the cost of ignoring the difference eventually comes due.
There is a universal lesson here beyond governance. When the gut and the ledger conflict, the discomfort often signals more than anxiety. It is a prediction about consequences and a reminder of identity. He urges a disciplined attentiveness to that inner veto, not as superstition, but as a reliable check against the clever story we tell ourselves right before we make a mistake.
"Does not feel right" is not a plea for impulsiveness or sentimentality. It points to a cultivated moral sense, the product of values, experience, and pattern recognition. People accumulate a body of tacit knowledge about what leads to harm or betrayal, and the body reacts before the mind finishes its justifications. Neuroscientists call it a somatic marker; moral philosophers call it conscience. Cuomo is saying that when he overrode that signal, outcomes and ethics converged in the same judgment: it was wrong in fact and in principle.
Politics provides vivid examples. Expedient deals that mortgage future credibility, symbolic gestures that soothe today but leave injustice intact, quiet compromises that trade away the trust of constituents for short-term wins. The unease is the warning label. Cuomo’s career, including his high-profile defense of compassion and restraint in criminal justice and social policy, shows a consistent belief that doing what merely works is not the same as doing what is right, and that the cost of ignoring the difference eventually comes due.
There is a universal lesson here beyond governance. When the gut and the ledger conflict, the discomfort often signals more than anxiety. It is a prediction about consequences and a reminder of identity. He urges a disciplined attentiveness to that inner veto, not as superstition, but as a reliable check against the clever story we tell ourselves right before we make a mistake.
Quote Details
| Topic | Decision-Making |
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