Quotes by Tavis Smiley - Page 2

How do you grow up in the shadow of a guy - I want to talk about the movie in a second - but how do you grow up in the shadow of a guy who really is a legend in his own time?
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Growing Up
Guy
Shadow
Legend
Grow Up
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We give you the facts. I told you information is power - knowledge is power. We can't be in an ideological battle to redeem the soul of this country if we don't have the facts.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Knowledge
Battle
Country
Giving
Ideological
Information
Information Is Power
Soul
Redeem
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[John Carlos] has spent much of his life since that time as a dedicated human rights advocate and public speaker, and he is out now with a wonderful new text; a memoir, in fact.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Facts
Rights
Wonderful
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There are really only two types of people. Either you're running scared or you're running free. I choose to run free, and you can, too, no matter what your circumstances in life.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Running
People
Two
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I feel blessed to be in the broadcast business for 20 years. I believe that when you're this blessed, you have an obligation to pay it forward. That's what life is all about ultimately.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Believe
Blessed
Years
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I feel like I've been successful after being done with the film is when I see it, if I'm embarrassed, if I'm slightly mortified, and if I feel super-vulnerable, I think I did something.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Done
Successful
Thinking
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Be careful about gossiping because loose lips really do sink ships. Now that I'm in the broadcast business, and people talk about me, I know what it feels like to be the victim of gossip.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Gossip
People
Victim
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History is replete with examples of moments in time when we talk about deficit reduction and try to advance on it around the world, that is, where it leads to job losses, not job creation.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Jobs
Creation
Deficit
Job Creation
Loss
Moments
Reduction
Trying
Time History World
Time History Where
Advance
Deficit Reduction
Examples
Leads
Losses
Replete
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This is not a skill problem, this is a will problem. Does America have the will to make education a priority? We know the things that work. Why don't we scale up those things that do work.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
America
Priorities
Skills
Scale
Skill
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I still think in this country, and this might surprise you, the one thing that George Bush said as president that I do agree with, I love that phrase, "the soft bigotry of low expectations."
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Country
Expectations
Thinking
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I love my cross-sectioned, cross-cultural audience. Some of them are doing better than the average guy, but my audience has always been people who are struggling to stay in the middle class.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Average
Class
Struggle
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I can't count the number of people I've talked to over the course of my career who have said to me that the thing that they most regret is the one time they did something just for the money.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Careers
Numbers
Regret
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I still think in this country, and this might surprise you, the one thing that George Bush said as president that I do agree with, I love that phrase, 'the soft bigotry of low expectations.'
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Agree
Low Expectations
Surprise
Bush
George
George Bush
Low
Phrase
The One Thing
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This administration and these folk who run Washington are no more interested in our welfare and our well being than the man on the moon. And we have got to start taking our destiny into our hands.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Running
Administration
Destiny
Moon
Welfare
Washington
Folk
This Administration
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My role on television is one of helping people reexamine the assumptions that they hold. I regard Dr. King. You would never hear me get up and speak without in some way, shape or form, referencing, Dr. King.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Kings
Helping
Helping People
People
Regard
Roles
Television
King Me People
Assumptions
Dr
Dr. King
Shape
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Every community has a Martin Luther King Boulevard. It's the cornerstone we all know. It's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where Walmart stands together with your community to make every day better.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Kings
Community
Together
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Sometimes even your friends don't understand your calling, your purpose, your vocation. But you have to stand in your truth anyway, and they will eventually come around to understanding you, if you do it lovingly.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Calling
Purpose
Understanding
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I'm very musically curious and I love new experience. I'm an adventurer. Some people want to sort of stay in a safe zone and repeat the same things and give them more depth, and I want to do new things all the time
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Giving
New Experiences
People
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That is still the case in this country for too many students, the soft bigotry of low expectations. If you don't expect them to learn, if you don't expect them to succeed - then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Country
Expectations
Low Expectations
Prophecy
Self
Self Fulfilling Prophecy
Succeed
Low
Self-Fulfilling
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There are enough bad films coming out of this town already without the process being more democratized. I'm a guy who loves democracy. I'm all for democratizing any process, but I think there is a price to pay for that.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Democracy
Guy
Thinking
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When it comes to the president, we have to respect him, we have to protect him, and we have to correct him. And in my career, since he'd been on the national stage at least, I've had - I've always respected the president.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Careers
President
Protect
Stage
Correct
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I think a lot of people who go to drama school have this ease with the text and they all have five monologues that they know by heart, and I never had that. I've done Chekov and I've done Moliere and I've done classic stuff
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Drama
Heart
School
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This country is going to implode, or put another way, it's going to get crushed under the weight of poverty. You can't have one percent of the people who own and control more wealth than the other 90 percent of the population.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Another Way
Crushed
Population
Poverty
Wealth
Weight
Country Control People
One Percent
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Take your focus off how others see you. Cease being obsessed with the need to impress your friends and your foes. Keep your concern on the vision you see in the mirror. Don’t allow the approval of others to obstruct your view of you.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Approval Of Others
Mirrors
Views
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I don't think I'd live anything over, even though I've made a lot of mistakes. I have learned how to see failure as a friend. So, I'm not one to live a life of regrets. I try to learn from my mistakes, but I'll take my life the way it is.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Mistake
Regret
Thinking
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I think the issue of women's choice is essential for a woman being able to have their lives - if they cannot control their own bodies by choosing if or when to have a child, then they cannot control their working life or anything around them.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Children
Issues
Thinking
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We think of - there are too many wars, of course, in the world as we speak, but my read on this suggests to me that water is going to be the resource into the future that we're really - that countries, nations, are going to be fighting for control over.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
War
Country
Fighting
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Even in the era of the first black president, racism is still the most intractable issue in USA. Regarding poverty, half of all Americans are either in or near poverty. Poverty is certainly worse for African-Americans now than it was during King's lifetime.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Kings
Issues
Usa
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I don't think that left to its own devices, capitalism moves along smoothly and everyone gets treated fairly in the process. Capitalism is like a child: if you want the child to grow up free and productive, somebody's got to look over the shoulder of that child.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Capitalism
Devices
Process
Fairly
Gets
Grow Up
Shoulder
Smoothly
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[In a blogosphere] everybody has an opinion now, but I don't really freaking care about - all opinions ain't created equal, because everybody can go out there and express themselves and hide behind some character we don't know who you really are, a bunch of cowards.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Care
Character
Coward
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Jamestown changed the world in many ways, but perhaps it shaped our nation most profoundly the day Africans arrived. I can't think of a more relevant place to talk about the issues facing our community today than the place where African culture became American culture.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
American Culture
Community
Issues
Our Community
Relevant
Thinking
African
Arrived
Facing
Shaped
Profoundly
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Even behind bars, even on Death Row, you can fail up, because life is about committing ourselves on a daily basis to the best in us. Freedom is a state of mind. Freedom is an attitude. Freedom is a spirit. You may be behind bars, but you still have the capacity to be free.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Attitude
May
Mind Freedom
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I use the phrase "fellow citizen" all the time when referring to the - people always say, "The American people, the American people." I prefer the phrase fellow citizen because there's a power in that, there's a responsibility, there's a duty in using that phrase fellow citizen.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Citizens
People
Responsibility
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I love the fight. I don't - it's not a negative, it's a positive, and I love the challenge. There's that little part of me that I love proving someone wrong in that way when they have an image of me or something, or they think they have me figured out or they think I'm a certain way.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Challenges
Fighting
Thinking
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I learned early on that it's heartbreaking to - there's the editor that comes in, and then they have to craft the movie together, and sometimes you give a whole performance that's just been cut up, and maybe it's better for it, absolutely, but you still have to deal with the loss of that.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Cutting
Editors
Loss
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I believed that President Obama was a good choice a couple of years ago because I felt that, as a black man, if he could win, it would open up progressive possibilities in this country for a lot of people. That was my major reason for believing his candidacy was a good thing. However, I don't endorse candidates, given the type of work that I do. My job is to hold people accountable.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Believe
Country
Couple
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I'm talking about France and Germany and Italy and Spain - new friend Germany - and I love that story, how they lead the world in some things that the world needs leadership in. Amongst them we're the only ones without national healthcare. Can't go to a hospital and not worry about falling into bankruptcy. They go to university free. We're killing our students with debt. That scares me.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Fall
Talking
Worry
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I think that what started out as a European Union originally was probably a really wonderful and world-changing idea, the idea of a kind of cooperation and interdependence between countries. But the idea that individualization would work on common ground, not on conflict, not against each other, but to find how each benefitted from the other I thought was an incredibly hopeful and positive possibility.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Country
Ideas
Thinking
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My personal assessment is that Dr. King is the greatest American we have ever produced. I can argue for Lincoln, I can argue for FDR, but for my money, King is the greatest American we have ever produced. His only weapon was love. He transforms a nation, transforms the world with one weapon and that of course being again the weapon of love. So that for me, King is the quintessential example of everything that I could ever want to be in my lifetime.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Kings
Assessment
Weapons
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Life is about committing ourselves on a daily basis to the best in us. Freedom is a state of mind. Freedom is an attitude. Freedom is a spirit. You may be behind bars, but you still have the capacity to be free. I've visited some people behind bars who are freer than Negroes I see running around every day. Being in jail, or poor, or uneducated doesn't determine how free you can be. There are really only two types of people. Either you're running scared or you're running free. I choose to run free, and you can, too, no matter what your circumstances in life.
Tavis Smiley / Talk Show Host
Running
Attitude
People
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Tavis Smiley Quotes - Page 2

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