Mario Cuomo Quotes (27 Quotes)

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.

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.

We must get the American public to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship, to the reality, the hard substance of things. And we'll do it not so much with speeches that will bring people to their feet as with speeches that bring people to their senses.

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.

Scott Stringer has a record of standing up to special interests and getting results for the people of Manhattan. I know a real reformer when I see one and Scott Stringer is the real deal.

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

For me to make lasagna would be a desecration of a great Italian dish. . . . I don't mess with sacred things.

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.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

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

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

He was agonizingly long, ... but don't make the mistake thinking that is a fatal error. I've known him as a governor for a long time and I think he's extremely talented. He has the strength of being able to focus. He has a single ambition, and he has always had this ambition, and it is to someday be president of the United States.

You have these people who don't like the government they're supposed to be running,

I wish I could say he was the product of a developed politics here that is so strong, but he wasn't, ... And, neither was Hillary. Hillary was an import from Washington who chose, to our benefit, to come to New York. Yeah, they are New Yorkers now and very much so, but not a product of New York politics.

You want calamities? What about the Ice Age?

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.

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.

If you were Merlin and you had taken a young boy with a fragile build and dipped him into the cauldron of boiling juices from lizards' insides and produced a knight with the biggest, broadest sword ever seen, you wouldn't have a better miracle than Giuliani produced by 9-11,

I liked President Reagan. I certainly wouldn't have trusted him if he said to me, I never had an extramarital affair.

Lincoln isn't a man with ingrown toenails, he's an idea.

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

I'd say, That's it, Charlie, you're going to be by yourself for a hundred years.

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

It seems to me he has everything it takes to make a really great candidate. I'm delighted and pleased we're endorsing him, and I'll do everything I can to help.

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.

I have no plans, and no plans to plan.