Mario Cuomo Quotes

People expect Byzantine, Machiavellian logic from politicians.

But the truth is simple. Trial lawyers learn a good rule: 'Don't decide what you don't have to decide.' That's not evasion, it's wisdom.

You want calamities? What about the Ice Age? God made this world, but didn't complete it.

For me to make lasagna would be a desecration of a great Italian dish.

. . . I don't mess with sacred things.

If you can manipulate news, a judge can manipulate the law.

A smart lawyer can keep a killer out of jail, a smart accountant can keep a thief from paying taxes, a smart reporter could ruin your reputation- unfairly.

The Republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the frontier unless some of the old, some of the young, some of the weak are left behind.

There are few things more amusing in the world of politics than watching moderate Republicans charging to the right in pursuit of greater glory.

The mugger who is arrested is back on the street before the police officer, but the person mugged may not be back on the street for a long time, if ever.

Every time I've done something that doesn't feel right, it's ended up not being right.

The American people need no course in philosophy or political science or church history to know that God should not be made into a celestial party chairman.

A judge can manipulate the law. A smart lawyer can keep a killer out of jail.

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.

Democracy is not meant to be efficient, it is meant to be fair.

I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in fifty years what my father taught me by example in one week.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

The truth is the justice system does need review, there are troubling questions that need to be answered, law enforcement needs to respect the community and the community needs to respect law enforcement.

I told them that my grandfather had died in the Great Crash of 1929 - a stockbroker jumped out of a window and crushed him and his pushcart down below.

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.

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

We work harder and we earn less. Income inequality is at the highest point in over a century. While American capitalism never guaranteed success, it did guarantee opportunity, for too many, the dream of economic mobility has been replaced with a nightmare of economic stagnation.

A shining city is perhaps all the president sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well. But there's another part to the shining city. In this part of the city there are more poor than ever, more families in trouble, more and more people who need help but can't find it.

The American people need no course in philosophy or political science or church history to know that God should not be made into a celestial party chairman. To most of us, the manipulative invoking of religion to advance a politician or a party is frightening and divisive. The American people will tolerate religious leaders taking positions for or against candidates.

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

Entertainers and sports figures achieve fame and wealth but find the world empty and dull without the solace and stimulation of drugs.

We are disgusted by the things that we desire, and we desire what disgusts us.

People asked me what I want as an epitaph: 'He tried'

I have no plans, and no plans to plan.

What I didn't do was pick one thing and keep saying it over and over again, so I could have gotten credit for it.

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.

We believe in a government strong enough to use words like "love" and "compassion" and smart enough to convert our noblest aspirations into practical realities.

Wes Clark is a man of whom you can ask a question, and he will look you directly in the eye, and give you the most truthful and complete answer you can imagine. You will know the absolute truth of the statement as well as the thought process behind the answer. You will have no doubt as to the intellect of the speaker and meaning of the answer to this question....So you can see, as a politician, he has a lot to learn.

In 1960 Americans chose John F. Kennedy because they were ready for change. They were ready for new and better ideas. After six years of scandals and failed policies under the Reagan Administration, Americans are again ready for change and stronger leadership. I love my country. That is why I am seeking the Democratic nomination for president.

I am a trial lawyer. Matilda says that at dinner on a good day I sound like an affidavit.

There are only two rules for being successful.

One, figure out exactly what you want to do, and two, do it.

Outrage is easy, cheap, and oversold. The nation needs less anger and more thoughtful reflection, less shouting and more listening, less dissembling and more honesty.

I have heard the critics. What they are spewing are lies, nothing more. My defense policy calls for an efficient and strong military for our country. We live in dangerous times, but we must remember that we have to defend the United States against dangerous and modern threats. The Cold War is ending. Defense hawks like Senator Nunn need to understand this.

It's a Little Leaguers game that major leaguers play extraordinarily well, a game that excites us throughout adulthood. The crack of the bat and the scent of the horsehide on leather bring back our own memories that have been washed away with the sweat and tears of summers long gone...even as the setting sun pushes the shadows past home plate.

In this life, you should read everything you can read. Taste everything you can taste. Meet everyone you can meet. Travel everywhere you can travel. Learn everything you can learn. Experience everything you can experience.

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.

I said I didn't want to run for president. I didn't ask you to believe me.

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.

There are some who ask us to believe that if we want the best of times for ourselves, the fit and the fortunate, then we'll just have to learn to live with the worst of times for millions of other Americans - that we're doomed to be a nation of the lucky and the left-out. I don't believe it. My mother didn't believe it. Your ancestors didn't believe it. And I don't think you should believe it.

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

The problems of a retired schoolteacher in Duluth are OUR problems. That the future of the child in Buffalo is OUR future. That the struggle of a disabled man in Boston to survive and live decently is OUR struggle. That The hunger of a woman in Little Rock is OUR hunger. That the failure anywhere to provide what reasonably we might to avoid pain is OUR failure.

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.

It is not a government's obligation to provide services, but to see that they are provided.

For too many, the dream of economic mobility has been replaced with a nightmare of economic stagnation.

When you've parked the second car in the garage, and installed the hot tub, and skied in Colorado, and wind-surfed in the Caribbean, when you've had your first love affair and your second and your third, the question will remain, where does the dream end for me?

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

I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work fifteen and sixteen hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example.