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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

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Mario Cuomo
Age: 82 †
Born: 1932
Born: June 15
Died: 2015
Died: January 1
Baseball Player
Former Governor Of New York
Lawyer
Politician
Jamaica
Queens
Mario Matthew Cuomo
Good
Politician
Lawyers
People
Expect
Trial
Wisdom
Trials
Politics
Politicians
Simple
Lawyer
Learn
Decide
Machiavellian
Political
Logic
Byzantine
Truth
Rule
Evasion

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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.
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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.
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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.
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The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday they might force their beliefs on us.
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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.
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It is not a government's obligation to provide services, but to see that they are provided.
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Every time I've done something that doesn't feel right, it's ended up not being right.
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I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week.
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We work harder and we earn less. Income inequality is at the highest point in over a century. While American capitalism never guaranteed success, it did guarantee opportunity, for too many, the dream of economic mobility has been replaced with a nightmare of economic stagnation.
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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.
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People asked me what I want as an epitaph: 'He tried'
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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.
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We are disgusted by the things that we desire, and we desire what disgusts us.
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We believe in only the government we need, but we insist on all the government we need.
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For me to make lasagna would be a desecration of a great Italian dish. . . . I don't mess with sacred things.
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I said I didn't want to run for president. I didn't ask you to believe me.
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Decide exactly what you want to achieve. Do you want to help people, or do you want to be powerful?
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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.
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A judge can manipulate the law. A smart lawyer can keep a killer out of jail.
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The closed circle of materialism is clear to us now - aspirations become wants, wants become needs, and self-gratification becomes a bottomless pit.
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