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. Mario Cuomo
Almost all Americans accept some religious values as a part of our public life. We are a religious people, many of us descended from ancestors who came here expressly to live their religious faith free from coercion or repression. But we are also a people of many religions, with no established church, who hold different beliefs on many matters. Mario Cuomo
Every time I’ve done something that doesn’t feel right, it’s ended up not being right. Mario Cuomo
How simple it seems now. We thought the Sermon on the Mount was a nice allegory and nothing more. What we didn’t understand until we got to be a little older was that it was the whole answer, the whole truth. That the way — the only way — to succeed and to be happy is to learn those rules so basic that a shepherd’s son could teach them to an ignorant flock without notes or formulae. Mario Cuomo
I am a trial lawyer. … Matilda says that at dinner on a good day I sound like an affidavit. Mario Cuomo
I have no plans, and no plans to plan. Mario Cuomo
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. Mario Cuomo
I said I didn’t want to run for president. I didn’t ask you to believe me. Mario Cuomo
I somehow got this reputation of diddling and dithering. I don’t remember dithering at all. Mario Cuomo
I swore when it was over, to myself and everyone else, that I would never do that again. I will never run a race that I don’t have my whole heart in. Mario Cuomo
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. Mario Cuomo
I think it’s already apparent that a good part of this Nation understands — if only instinctively — that anything which seems to suggest that God favors a political party or the establishment of a state church, is wrong and dangerous. Mario Cuomo
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. Mario Cuomo
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. Mario Cuomo
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. Mario Cuomo
People asked me what I want as an epitaph: ‘He tried’. Mario Cuomo
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. Mario Cuomo
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. Mario Cuomo
The closed circle of materialism is clear to us now — aspirations become wants, wants become needs, and self-gratification becomes a bottomless pit. Mario Cuomo
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. Mario Cuomo
Mario Cuomo Quotes
The Republicans believe the wagon train will not make it to the frontier unless some of our old, some of our young, and some of our weak are left behind by the side of the trail. We Democrats believe that we can make it all the way with the whole family intact. Mario Cuomo
There are few things more amusing in the world of politics than watching moderate Republicans charging to the right in pursuit of greater glory. Mario Cuomo
There are only two rules for being successful; one, figure out exactly what you want to do, and two, do it. Mario Cuomo
This is a wonderful year for raw truth. We don’t have any money. Mario Cuomo
We believe in encouraging the talented, but we believe that while survival of the fittest may be a good working description of the process of evolution, a government of humans should elevate itself to a higher order. Mario Cuomo
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 sound good as with speeches that are good and sound; not so much with speeches that will bring people to their feet as with speeches that will bring people to their senses. Mario Cuomo
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. Mario Cuomo
You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose. Mario Cuomo