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.
There are only two rules for being successful. One, figure out exactly what you want to do, and two, do it.
For me to make lasagna would be a desecration of a great Italian dish. . . . I don't mess with sacred things.
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.
I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week.
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.
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.
It is not a government's obligation to provide services, but to see that they are provided.
The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday they might force their beliefs on us.
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.
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.
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.
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.
For too many, the dream of economic mobility has been replaced with a nightmare of economic stagnation.
Entertainers and sports figures achieve fame and wealth but find the world empty and dull without the solace and stimulation of drugs.
The closed circle of materialism is clear to us now - aspirations become wants, wants become needs, and self-gratification becomes a bottomless pit.
You will not be able to tell that they are capable of greatness until you provide them with a packed house, a 3-and-2 count and the game is on the line.
Way down deep the American people are afraid of an entangling relationship between formal religions - or whole bodies of religious belief - and government.
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.
I somehow got this reputation of diddling and dithering. I don't remember dithering at all.
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.
Decide exactly what you want to achieve. Do you want to help people, or do you want to be powerful?
The biggest aggravation in the Arab world, the biggest reason for their anger toward us and the creation of those suicide terrorists, is Israel and the difficulty with the Palestinian issue.
Barack Obama is probably one of the brightest in terms of sheer intelligence... also probably the best orator we've ever had as a president.
