Tavis Smiley Quotes
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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, I love that phrase, "the soft bigotry of low expectations."
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Loving your enemy is a radical concept.
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Poverty and wealth inequality are a form of instability into the future.
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Every community has a Martin Luther King Boulevard. It's the cornerstone we all know. It's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where Walmart stands together with your community to make every day better.
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I think the issue of women's choice is essential for a woman being able to have their lives - if they cannot control their own bodies by choosing if or when to have a child, then they cannot control their working life or anything around them.
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I learned early on that it's heartbreaking to - there's the editor that comes in, and then they have to craft the movie together, and sometimes you give a whole performance that's just been cut up, and maybe it's better for it, absolutely, but you still have to deal with the loss of that.
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I wanted to be a theater actress, and initially, I wanted to work in musical theater
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Life is about committing ourselves on a daily basis to the best in us. Freedom is a state of mind. Freedom is an attitude. Freedom is a spirit. You may be behind bars, but you still have the capacity to be free. I've visited some people behind bars who are freer than Negroes I see running around every day. Being in jail, or poor, or uneducated doesn't determine how free you can be. 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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Having to try and going through the trials and tribulations to actually overcome, to get there to win, to triumph, that's what makes life interesting
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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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I use the phrase "fellow citizen" all the time when referring to the - people always say, "The American people, the American people." I prefer the phrase fellow citizen because there's a power in that, there's a responsibility, there's a duty in using that phrase fellow citizen.
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Regardless of your race, religion or political affiliation, never hesitate to question those in authority.
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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.
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[In a blogosphere] everybody has an opinion now, but I don't really freaking care about - all opinions ain't created equal, because everybody can go out there and express themselves and hide behind some character we don't know who you really are, a bunch of cowards.
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I can't count the number of people I've talked to over the course of my career who have said to me that the thing that they most regret is the one time they did something just for the money.
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Sometimes even your friends don't understand your calling, your purpose, your vocation. But you have to stand in your truth anyway, and they will eventually come around to understanding you, if you do it lovingly.
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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 child.
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Sometimes rejection in life is really redirection.
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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 think that what started out as a European Union originally was probably a really wonderful and world-changing idea, the idea of a kind of cooperation and interdependence between countries. But the idea that individualization would work on common ground, not on conflict, not against each other, but to find how each benefitted from the other I thought was an incredibly hopeful and positive possibility.
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Democrats, too often, take blacks for granted, and Republicans, too often, simply ignore black voters.
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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.
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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.
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Competition's always been a product of American lifestyle
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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 indicator category.
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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 relevant place to talk about the issues facing our community today than the place where African culture became American culture.
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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 is, where it leads to job losses, not job creation.
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I grew. Going outside my comfort zone is a big one for me.
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John Carlos provided the world with one of the most iconic images of the 1960s with his Black Power salute after a medal-winning performance at the 1968 summer games.
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For me, like when you've put yourself out there emotionally, physically, and you've really put yourself on the line, for me, that means I've really done something.
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