Quotes from Tavis Smiley

We believe that when you make Black America better - you make all of America better.

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.

It's hard these days to have a conversation, at least it is for me, about [Truman]Capote without "Good Night, and Good Luck" coming up in the same conversation.

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.

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.

Regardless of your race, religion or political affiliation, never hesitate to question those in authority.

We need to elect leaders who understand that leadership is about loving and serving people, not about self-advancement.

This country is going to implode, or put another way, it's going to get crushed under the weight of poverty. You can't have one percent of the people who own and control more wealth than the other 90 percent of the population.

Sometimes rejection in life is really redirection.

Live just because or live your life for a cause

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.

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.

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 when it was first raised.

The storm came. Lives were washed away. Ancient pains resurfaced. Now it is time for a sea of change.

We come to know who we really are in life during the dark and difficult and desolate days of our journey.

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.

I believe there is nothing we endure in life that you can't recover from. Failure is not fatal. Everyone has the capacity to fail up.

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.

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

What determines your altitude in life is your attitude.

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?

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.

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.

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.