Tavis Smiley Quotes

The storm came. Lives were washed away. Ancient pains resurfaced. Now it is time for a sea of change.

Sometimes rejection in life is really redirection.

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.

I believe if we make black America better, we make all of America better.

Regardless of your race, religion or political affiliation, never hesitate to question those in authority.

Poverty and wealth inequality are a form of instability into the future.

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.

In some states, not even 50 percent of black boys finish high school.

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.

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.

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.

I don't want the Obama era to be more about symbolism than substance when it comes to black people. I love him, but I love black people even more.

When you work for something, you appreciate it more.

So what are y'all going to do with all the opportunities you inherited that you didn't have to work for?

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.

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.

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.

My acting gives me my self-worth

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.

I thought our community should have a deep dialogue to make black America better. I believe if we make black America better, we make all of America better.

To be clear, the gap between the have gots and the have nots is widening.

In this most multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic America ever, that concerns me.

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

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.

This whole notion of a post racial America was nonsense from the very beginning.

It was a bad idea, a bad notion, a bad formulation when it was first raised.

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.'

We believe that when you make Black America better - you make all of America better.

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.

Fear, fear, breeds hopelessness. When you're afraid, you don't know what to believe in, you don't know what to hold on to. You're struggling to find something to believe in.

It's hard these days to have a conversation, at least it is for me, about [Truman]Capote without "Good Night, and Good Luck" coming up in the same conversation.

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.

Leonard Pitts, Jr. is the most insightful and inspiring columnist of his generation.

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.

We come to know who we really are in life during the dark and difficult and desolate days of our journey.

For me, like when you've put yourself out there emotionally, physically, and you've really put yourself on the line, for me, that means I've really done something.

We need to elect leaders who understand that leadership is about loving and serving people, not about self-advancement.

Why don't we scale up those things that do work.

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.

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.

What determines your altitude in life is your attitude.

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.

Live just because or live your life for a cause

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.

I wanted to be a theater actress, and initially, I wanted to work in musical theater

If you don't have courage, you can't practice any of the other virtues.

I fear that we are living in a society, living in a world where forgiving people is becoming more and more difficult to do.

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.

I think when I stop fighting, I die in a sense.

When I'm at the premiere and I see the film in its entirety, I forget plot, I forget the story, I forget what my character goes through, because I really do just let it go.

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.

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.