Josephine Baker Quotes

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

I spent 30 minutes each morning rubbing my body with half a lemon to lighten my skin.

Friends, to me for years St. Louis represented a city of fear ... humiliation ... misery and terror ... A city where in the eyes of the white man a Negro should know his place and had better stay in it.

All men can live together, if they wish to.

All my life, I have maintained that the people of the world can learn to live together in peace if they are not brought up in prejudice.

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

I ran away from St. Louis, and then I ran away from the United States, because of that terror of discrimination.

Art is an elastic sort of love.

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.

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.

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

Oh, you young people act like old men. You have no fun.

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.

God dislikes evil, and no happiness can be built on hate. Love one another as brothers.

I have never really been a great artist. I have been a human being that has loved art, which is not the same thing. But I have loved and believed in art and the idea of universal brotherhood so much, that I have put everything I have into them, and I have been blessed.

I believe in prayer. It's the best ...

Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone.

I remember when Lindbergh arrived in Paris, I was one of the first persons to know about his landing, because as the French people know that I was born in St. Louis, thinking I would be very proud to announce it to the public, they gave me the news first. I was then starring in the 'Folies Bergere.'

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

I have two loves: my country and Paris.

Americans, the eyes of the world are upon you. How can you expect the world to believe in you and respect your preaching of democracy when you yourself treat your colored brothers as you do?

Sex was a pleasurable form of exercise, like dancing.

When I was a child and they burned me out of my home, I was frightened and I ran away. Eventually I ran far away. It was to a place called France. Many of you have been there, and many have not. But I must tell you, ladies and gentlemen, in that country I never feared. It was like a fairyland place.

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

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

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

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.

What am I most ashamed of in my life? Not keeping my promise to my sister and being too scared of America to attend her funeral.

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

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

The hate directed against the colored people here in St. Louis has always given me a sad feeling because when I was a little girl I remember the horror of the East St. Louis race riot.

I believe if the white and colored people could get together and be let alone, they would understand each other and consequently love each other.

I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too.