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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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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
Needs
Believe
Insist
Government
Need

More quotes by Mario Cuomo

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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
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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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The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday they might force their beliefs on us.
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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A judge can manipulate the law. A smart lawyer can keep a killer out of jail.
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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It is not a government's obligation to provide services, but to see that they are provided.
Mario Cuomo
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We believe in a government that is characterized by fairness and reasonableness, a reasonableness that goes beyond labels, that doesn't distort or promise to do things that we know we can't do.
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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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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The Republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the frontier unless some of the old, some of the young, some of the weak are left behind.
Mario Cuomo
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Democracy is not meant to be efficient, it is meant to be fair.
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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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
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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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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
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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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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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Every time I've done something that doesn't feel right, it's ended up not being right.
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