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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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Tavis Smiley
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: September 13
Businessperson
Journalist
Radio Personality
Talk Show Host
Television Presenter
Television Producer
Gulfport
Mississippi
Years
Ultimately
Life
Blessed
Forward
Pay
Business
Feel
Feels
Broadcast
Believe
Obligation

More quotes by 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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We come to know who we really are in life during the dark and difficult and desolate days of our journey.
Tavis Smiley
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Sometimes rejection in life is really redirection.
Tavis Smiley
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Live just because or live your life for a cause
Tavis Smiley
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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
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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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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.
Tavis Smiley
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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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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Don't envy someone else's gift. Discover your own.
Tavis Smiley
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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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I wanted to be a theater actress, and initially, I wanted to work in musical theater
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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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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What determines your altitude in life is your attitude.
Tavis Smiley
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Struggling to stay in the middle class, and I love that. That's me and my dad and my family.
Tavis Smiley