Tavis Smiley Quotes

40 quotes in 630 categories

• The choices we make about the lives we live determine the kinds of legacies we leave.
• 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…
• 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…
• 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…
• How do you grow up in the shadow of a guy - I want to talk about the movie in a second - but how…
• The data is going to indicate sadly that when the Obama administration is over, black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic…
• 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…
• In some states, not even 50 percent of black boys finish high school.
• 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,…
• 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,…
• 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…
• 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…
• Leonard Pitts, Jr. is the most insightful and inspiring columnist of his generation.
• 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…
• Why don't we scale up those things that do work.
• What determines your altitude in life is your attitude.
• I believe if we make black America better, we make all of America better.
• Don't envy someone else's gift. Discover your own.
• 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…
• 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…

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