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

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
People
Decide
Inspiring
Exactly
Achieve
Powerful
Help
Helping

More quotes by Mario Cuomo

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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.
Mario Cuomo
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The truth is the justice system does need review, there are troubling questions that need to be answered, law enforcement needs to respect the community and the community needs to respect law enforcement.
Mario Cuomo
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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
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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.
Mario Cuomo
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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.
Mario Cuomo
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It is not a government's obligation to provide services, but to see that they are provided.
Mario Cuomo
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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.
Mario Cuomo
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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.
Mario Cuomo
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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.
Mario Cuomo
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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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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
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I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work 15 and 16 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.
Mario Cuomo
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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.
Mario Cuomo
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A judge can manipulate the law. A smart lawyer can keep a killer out of jail.
Mario Cuomo
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We believe in only the government we need, but we insist on all the government we need.
Mario Cuomo
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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.
Mario Cuomo
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People asked me what I want as an epitaph: 'He tried'
Mario Cuomo
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For too many, the dream of economic mobility has been replaced with a nightmare of economic stagnation.
Mario Cuomo
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We are disgusted by the things that we desire, and we desire what disgusts us.
Mario Cuomo
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It's a Little Leaguers game that major leaguers play extraordinarily well, a game that excites us throughout adulthood. The crack of the bat and the scent of the horsehide on leather bring back our own memories that have been washed away with the sweat and tears of summers long gone...even as the setting sun pushes the shadows past home plate.
Mario Cuomo