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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.

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
Eras
Substance
Obama
Black
Comes
Even
Love
People
Symbolism

More quotes by 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.
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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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He was a humanist then, he's a humanist now, and to my mind John Carlos is an authentic American hero.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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Sometimes rejection in life is really redirection.
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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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What determines your altitude in life is your attitude.
Tavis Smiley
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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
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Don't envy someone else's gift. Discover your own.
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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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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Live just because or live your life for a cause
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Troubled times do call for troubled songs, songs that unsettle our souls and our spirits unapologetically.
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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