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

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
Sense
Think
Thinking
Stop
Dies
Fighting

More quotes by 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 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
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Regardless of your race, religion or political affiliation, never hesitate to question those in authority.
Tavis Smiley
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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.
Tavis Smiley
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Poverty and wealth inequality are a form of instability into the future.
Tavis Smiley
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What determines your altitude in life is your attitude.
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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I wanted to be a theater actress, and initially, I wanted to work in musical theater
Tavis Smiley
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Sometimes rejection in life is really redirection.
Tavis Smiley
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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?
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.
Tavis Smiley
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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?
Tavis Smiley
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I believe if we make black America better, we make all of America better.
Tavis Smiley
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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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