governors-of-new-york

"No man should be in public office who can't make more money in private life."

"The law is bigger than money, but only if the law works hard enough."

"New York City isn't a melting pot, it's a boiling pot."

"All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy."

"The American people never carry an umbrella. They prepare to walk in eternal sunshine. In times of prosperity and plenty, the public...orator who would suggest a measure for unemployment relief would find it most difficult to get an audience....There is little doubt in my mind that we may be able to work out some system of deferring portions of public works and holding them in reserve for...unemployment."

"To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy."

"I think the end result will be a somewhat more moderate Kathy Hochul, which I think squares with where she actually is, which is a bit of a common sense, moderate Democrat"

"Anyone who commits a crime under our laws...has consequences...I don't know why that's so important to you."

"If Canada someday ever attacked Buffalo, I’m sorry, my friends, there would be no Canada the next day. That is a natural reaction."

"We're fighting to bring the government back to the people and out of the hands of dictators. And we're here to say that the era of Trump and Zeldin and Molinaro – just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, okay? Get outta town, get OUTTA town, 'cause you don’t represent our values. You are not New yorkers, you're not New Yorkers. Because we come from a long line of people who fought for women's rights that happened here first. We fought for environmental justice that happened here first. We fought for labor rights that happened here first. We fought for the LGBTQ rights that happened here first."

"These projects help us turn the face of New York city's long-standing dependence on fossil fuels, ensuring millions of New Yorkers-especially those living in our most vulnerable communities-can have the promise of cleaner air and a healthier future"

"I have felt a weight on my shoulders to make sure that every little girl and all the women of the state who’ve had to bang up against glass ceilings everywhere they turn, to know that a woman could be elected in her own right and successfully govern a state as rough and tumble as New York"

"I'm a mother. You're hard-wired to care about your children and your family's safety. So voters need to know that we have a plan"

"I want by the end of my administration, for every woman to say there are no barriers, there is no longer a ceiling"

"I will have no distractions in my administration because we focused on doing what's best for the people of the state"

"I want to get money out to people. We have way too much money sitting there that should be going to renters and to landlords who are suffering"

"We are not going to make America great again. It was never that great. We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged. We will reach greatness when discrimination and stereotyping of women, 51% of our population, is gone, and every woman's full potential is realized and unleashed and every woman is making her full contribution."

"My brother Chris, is positive for coronavirus"

"New York State calls this attack on Jussie Smollett what it is — a hate crime. Homophobia and racism will not be tolerated"

"It's a sad thing to say ... but that's classic Andrew Cuomo. A lot of people in New York State have received those phone calls. The bullying is nothing new. I believe Ron Kim and it's very, very sad, no public servant no person who's telling the truth should be treated that way. The threats, the belittling, the demand that someone change their statement right that moment ... many many times I've heard that and I know a lot of other people in this state have heard that"

"[Cuomo] chose to protect business profits over people's lives and now the whole world is paying attention to that decision and he needs to be held accountable for that"

"We’re the ones who are hit now. That’s today, but tomorrow it’s going to somewhere else, whether it’s Detroit, whether it’s New Orleans. It will work it’s way across the country"

"You know who came through Ellis Island? A gentleman named Richard Cawley. A poor Irish immigrant who came during the potato famine. You know who his grandson is? Vice President Michael Pence. You know who else came through New York harbor? Frederick Trump, grandfather of Donald Trump. The greatest arrogance is when you forget where you came from, and where you started, and this is the greatest arrogance. We all came from somewhere else. We are all immigrants."

"SALT encourages high-income New Yorkers to move to other states. And what you have to remember is even if a small number of high-income taxpayers leave, it has a dramatic effect on this tax space. We have one of the most progressive tax codes in the United States, which is a good thing. Which means the richer you are, the more you pay. However, that presents a very fragile economy because then you are relying on a very small number of people for the vast amount of your tax dollars. One percent of the taxpayers pay nearly half of all the taxes. One percent pay nearly half of all those taxes. Those one percent are the richest people in the state, they're the richest people in the country, and they are the most mobile people in the country. And you see the chart on the bottom. Top one percent - about 46 percent. Top five percent - 63 percent of all the revenue. Top 10 percent - 74 percent of all the revenue. Tax the rich, tax the rich, tax the rich. We did. Now, God forbid the rich leave. More than 95 percent of the tax increase from SALT falls on the top 20 percent of taxpayers."

"In May 2020, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York announced a partnership with the Gates Foundation to 'reinvent education.' Cuomo called Gates a visionary and argued that the pandemic has created 'a moment in history when we can actually incorporate and advance [Gates'] ideas...all these buildings, all these physical classrooms-why with all the technology you have?' In fact, Gates has been trying to dismantle the public education system of the United States for two decades."

"'Just say no' isn't enough unless there is something to say 'yes' to.""

"Governor Cuomo has complete discretion to be able to issue mass clemencies for the prisons. We know that de Blasio, the mayor, has the power to be able to release hundreds and thousands of people from Rikers Island and other jails. And so we really want them to be able to do that. There’s lots of pressure and demands that have been issued by local groups."

"One of the biggest lies in capitalism is that companies like competition. They don't. Nobody likes competition."

"Never talk when you can nod and never nod when you can wink and never write an e-mail, because it's death. You're giving prosecutors all the evidence we need."

"The nation thus situated, and enjoying forest, mineral, and agricultural resources unequalled, if endowed also with moral energies adequate to the achievement of great enterprises, and favored with a Government adapted to their character and condition, must command the empire of the seas, which alone is real empire."

"Douglas, no man will ever be President of the United States who spells 'negro' with two gs."

"Who does not see, then, that every year hereafter, European commerce, European politics, European thoughts, and European activity, although actually gaining greater force and European connections, although actually becoming more intimate will nevertheless relatively sink in importance; while the Pacific Ocean, its shores, its islands, and the vast regions beyond, will become the chief theatre of events in the World's great Hereafter? Who does not see that this movement must effect our own complete emancipation from what remains of European influence and prejudice, and in turn develop the American opinion and influence which shall remould constitutions, laws, and customs, in the land that is first greeted by the rising sun?"

"Whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of it. For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct it incessantly."

"Remember always that the cause of the United States is the cause of human nature."

"He is the most gentle-looking and amiable of men. Every word and look indicate sincerity of heart, even to guilelessness."

"Love one another."

"The color of the prisoner’s skin, and the form of his features, are not impressed upon the spiritual immortal mind which works beneath. In spite of human pride, he is still your brother, and mine, in form and color accepted and approved by his Father, and yours, and mine, and bears equally with us the proudest inheritance of our race — the image of our Maker. Hold him then to be a Man."

"One of the first outspoken proponents of transoceanic imperialism was former abolitionist William H. Seward who was Lincoln's secretary of state and who considered it the destiny of the United States to dominate the Pacific Ocean."

"The government of the United States, under the conduct of the Democratic Party, has been all that time surrendering one plain and castle after another to slavery."

"We have not Secretary Seward to thank, we have not President Lincoln to thank, we have not the govt of the United States to thank, we have not the commercial men nor the churches to thank; but we have Jeff Davis and the terrible persistency of the rebels to than, that there has been this change of conduct in the North. It was a matter of military necessity, and therefore we have it. And having been induced by military necessity, for the sake of self-preservation, we cannot rely upon it."

"The Democratic Party is inextricably committed to the designs of the slaveholders."

"The Union is a confederation of States. But in another aspect the United States constitute only one nation. Increase of population, which is filling the States out to their very borders, together with a new and extended network of railroads and other avenues, and an internal commerce which daily becomes more intimate, is rapidly bringing the States into a higher and more perfect social unity or consolidation. Thus, these antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact, and collision results. Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation."

"The history of the Democratic Party commits it to the policy of slavery. It has been the Democratic Party, and no other agency, which has carried that policy up to its present alarming culmination."

"I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue."

"There is no social life outside of Christendom."

"It is true, indeed, that the national domain is ours. It is true that it was acquired by the valor and with the wealth of the whole nation. But we hold no arbitrary authority over it. We hold no arbitrary authority over anything, whether lawfully acquired or seized by usurpation. The constitution regulates our stewardship; the constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defense, to welfare and to liberty. But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes."

"As a general truth, communities prosper and flourish, or droop and decline, in just the degree that they practise or neglect to practise the primary duties of justice and humanity. The free-labor system conforms to the divine law of equality, which is written in the hearts and consciences of man, and therefore is always and everywhere beneficent. The slave system is one of constant danger, distrust, suspicion, and watchfulness. It debases those whose toil alone can produce wealth and resources for defence, to the lowest degree of which human nature is capable, to guard against mutiny and insurrection, and thus wastes energies which otherwise might be employed in national development and aggrandizement. The free-labor system educates all alike, and by opening all the fields of industrial employment and all the departments of authority, to the unchecked and equal rivalry of all classes of men, at once secures universal contentment, and brings into the highest possible activity all the physical, moral, and social energies of the whole state."

"Such is the Democratic Party."

"We speak for millions of reasoning people fighting to preserve our environment from greed and from stupidity."

"I would like to tell them, the graduates, all of this, and I know that if we thought they would not be embarrassed by hearing it, we would all be telling them about how proud we are of them and how much we believe in them and their future. But again maybe we don't have to tell them; maybe they know. Maybe they can tell just by seeing the love in our eyes today."