Quote

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

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Tavis Smiley
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: September 13
Businessperson
Journalist
Radio Personality
Talk Show Host
Television Presenter
Television Producer
Gulfport
Mississippi
Many
Students
Bigotry
Cases
Fulfilling
Becomes
Soft
Learn
Lows
Stills
Expectations
Still
Expect
Self
Case
Country
Succeed
Prophecy

More quotes by Tavis Smiley

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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Losing teaches you something
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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.
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Competition's always been a product of American lifestyle
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Struggling to stay in the middle class, and I love that. That's me and my dad and my family.
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I wanted to be a theater actress, and initially, I wanted to work in musical theater
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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.
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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
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What determines your altitude in life is your attitude.
Tavis Smiley
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Be careful about gossiping because loose lips really do sink ships.
Tavis Smiley
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I'm always fascinated by people from the Midwest, because it is so different than Hollywood, who discover at some point that they want to be in Hollywood.
Tavis Smiley
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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
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Troubled times do call for troubled songs, songs that unsettle our souls and our spirits unapologetically.
Tavis Smiley
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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
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Sometimes rejection in life is really redirection.
Tavis Smiley
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I think when I stop fighting, I die in a sense.
Tavis Smiley
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The City of Angels is a microcosm of the world, and so living in L.A. makes me feel like a citizen of the world.
Tavis Smiley