Quotes by Josephine Baker (June 3, 1906 – April 12, 1975)

Josephine Baker Quotes

- Beautiful? It's all a question of luck. I was born with good legs. As for the rest... beautiful, no. Amusing, yes.

- I believe in prayer. It's the best way we have to draw strength from heaven.

- I like Frenchmen very much, because even when they insult you they do it so nicely.

- I wasn't really naked. I simply didn't have any clothes on.

- The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as long as life remains.

- I wasn't really naked. I simply didn't have any clothes on.

- The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as long as life remains.

- I believe in prayer. It's the best way we have to draw strength from heaven.

- Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one's soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.

- A violinist had a violin, a painter his palette. All I had was myself. I was the instrument that I must care for.

- It [the Eiffel Tower] looked very different from the Statue of Liberty, but what did that matter? What was the good of having the statue without the liberty?

- . I improvised, crazed by the music. . . . Even my teeth and eyes burned with fever. Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone.

- I like Frenchmen very much, because even when they insult you they do it so nicely.

- I was learning the importance of names -- having them, making them -- but at the same time I sensed the dangers. Recognition was followed by oblivion, a yawning maw whose victims disappeared without a trace.

- Beautiful? It's all a question of luck. I was born with good legs. As for the rest . . . beautiful, no. Amusing, yes.

- Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one's soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.

- The secret to the fountain of youth is to think youthful thoughts.

- I improvised, crazed by the music... Even my teeth and eyes burned with fever. Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone.

- I believe in prayer. It's the best way we have to draw strength from heaven.

- Beautiful? It's all a question of luck. I was born with good legs. As for the rest... beautiful, no. Amusing, yes.

- I like Frenchmen very much, because even when they insult you they do it so nicely.

- Since I personified the savage on the stage, I tried to be as civilized as possible in daily life.

- We must change the system of education and instruction. Unfortunately, history has shown us that brotherhood must be learned, when it should be natural.

- It [the Eiffel Tower] looked very different from the Statue of Liberty, but what did that matter? What was the good of having the statue without the liberty?

- I did take the blows [of life], but I took them with my chin up, in dignity, because I so profoundly love and respect humanity.

- We've got to show that blacks and whites are treated equally in the army. Otherwise, what's the point of waging war on Hitler?

- I love performing. I shall perform until the day I die.

- I'm not intimidated by anyone. Everyone is made with two arms, two legs, a stomach and a head. Just think about that.

- The white imagination is sure something when it comes to blacks.

- Art is an elastic sort of love.

- One day I realized I was living in a country where I was afraid to be black. It was only a country for white people. Not black. So I left. I had been suffocating in the United States... A lot of us left, not because we wanted to leave, but because we couldn't stand it anymore... I felt liberated in Paris.

- I am tired of that artificial life. The work of being a star disgusts me now. All the intrigues which surround the star disgust me... I want to work three or four more years and then quit the stage. I'll go live in Italy or the South of France. I will get married, as simply as possible. I will have children, and many animals. I love them. I want to live in peace surrounded by children and animals. But if one of my children wanted to go onstage in the music hall, I would strangle it with my own two hands.

- The old Catholic parties hounded me with a Christian hatred from station to station, city to city, one stage to another.

- You are on the eve of a complete victory. You can't go wrong. The world is behind you.

- Salt and pepper. Just what it should be.

- Until the March on Washington, I always had this little feeling in my stomach. I was always afraid. I couldn't meet white American people. I didn't want to be around them. But now that little gnawing feeling is gone. For the first time in my life I feel free. I know that everything is right now.

- I think they must mix blood, otherwise the human race is bound to degenerate. Mixing blood is marvelous. It makes strong and intelligent men. It takes away tired spirits.