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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Mario Cuomo Quotes

There are only two rules for being successful: one, figure out exactly what you want to do, and two, do it.

– Mario Cuomo

In ’86 or ’87, the welfare lists were at the lowest level in 17 years. Why? Because the economy was the best it was in 17 years. There were jobs.

– Mario Cuomo

You want calamities? What about the Ice Age?

– 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

The problem is that you can’t impose the church’s teachings on all Americans as a matter of law.

– Mario Cuomo

I am one who believes that the world goes from the slime to the sublime. And you can take Darwin and all your philosophers and all your ontologists, and that’s the direction.

– Mario Cuomo

America was born in outrageous ambition, so bold as to be improbable. The deprived, the oppressed, the powerless from all over the globe came here with little more than the desire to realize themselves.

– Mario Cuomo

Tax should be the same for everybody.

– Mario Cuomo

There’s something about rhetorical violence that is ugly and worrying.

– Mario Cuomo

My parents were immigrants.

– Mario Cuomo

I have no quarrel with people seeing me as a sinner.

– 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

Every minute brings a new opportunity. Every minute brings new growth, new experiences.

– Mario Cuomo

I have no plans, and no plans to plan.

– Mario Cuomo

There is a respectable body of economic thought that holds that casino gambling is actually economically regressive to a state and a community.

– Mario Cuomo

Religion is extremely important in this democracy – so important that it occupies a prime position in the Bill of Rights.

– Mario Cuomo

I wish I were as good a man as my son is.

– Mario Cuomo

I guess a psychiatrist would say there’s some good to the venting process, but it does also promote an attitude of saying, ‘Hey there’s nothing wrong with being filled with hate; there’s so much of it around.’ I don’t like that.

– Mario Cuomo

I had not even thought of running for president until one day in 1991, at a small fund-raiser, completely unanticipated, someone stood up and said, ‘Hey, Mario, in all the years we’ve supported you, we’ve never heard you talk about the presidency, and we want to know why not.’

– Mario Cuomo

I was badly mauled by people in New York State for being against the death penalty for 12 years.

– Mario Cuomo

The Mafia is a question every time an Italian raises his head.

– Mario Cuomo

California is an unusual and electric kind of state – it’s wonderful. All sorts of things happen there.

– Mario Cuomo

No one in the modern history of this country, no president, has done more to move toward a balanced budget than has President Bill Clinton.

– Mario Cuomo

In 1984, I gave a speech at Notre Dame titled ‘Religious Belief and Public Morality.’ I said that Catholic legislators will live by the laws of the church because we want to stay in the club.

– Mario Cuomo

Nobody has ever gotten a bigger push than Bill Clinton gave to Obama.

– Mario Cuomo

I don’t ever recall having a political argument with Bob Grant. I’ve known him a long time. I’ve always liked him.

– Mario Cuomo

In 1962, President Kennedy succeeded in captivating Americans by explaining the advantages of being the first country to reach the moon and the dangers of allowing another nation to beat us there.

– Mario Cuomo

My favorite thought about Abraham Lincoln is he believed in two things: loving one another and working together to make this world better.

– Mario Cuomo

I did once answer the question ‘What would you say on your tombstone?’ I know what I would say: ‘Mario Cuomo, 1932 – dash,’ and, ‘He tried.’ That’s it.

– Mario Cuomo

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

– Mario Cuomo

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