Top 40 Mario Cuomo Quotes

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

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.

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

I love immigrants. Legal, illegal – they’re not to be despised.

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.

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.

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

I love bunt plays. I love the idea of the bunt. I love the idea of the sacrifice. Even the word is good. Giving yourself up for the good of the whole.

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.’

The truth is that beginning in the 1970s, the heart of our Democratic party, America’s strong striving middle class, began drifting away from us.

We Democrats still have a dream. We still believe in this nation’s future.

The first good player I watched as a kid was Joe DiMaggio, and that was like ballet. Since then, I played sandlot and college ball and came to understand how difficult it can be.

I have no plans, and no plans to plan.

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.

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

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

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

My parents were immigrants.

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

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

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

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

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.

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.

The beauty of America is that I don’t have to deny my past to affirm my present. No one does. We can love this nation like a parent and still embrace our ancestral home like cherished grandparents.

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

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.

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

David Robinson chose to stay at Navy. He talked about commitment, loyalty and values. I wonder how many of us would choose these virtues rather than the chance of becoming a millionaire, especially if you were a college sophomore when you had to make that choice.

You want calamities? What about the Ice Age?

If I want to run for president, you’ll be able to tell.

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.

In 1982, I wrote in my diary that life is motion, not joy. If the way you measure success in life is by how much joy it brings you, you’re measuring inaccurately. Life is also sadness, defeat, striving. It is many things.

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

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

The Catholic Church did not always teach that life begins at conception.

There is no basis to say I’m being coy about running for president. If I chose to explore the presidency, I wouldn’t do it in a backward way. I’ll say, ‘I’m exploring the presidency.’

I had a chance to go on the Supreme Court of the United States, and my whole family was more disappointed in my deciding not to do that than in my deciding not to run for president – much more.

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

Organized belief in spirituality – that’s what a religion is.