Josephine Baker

Art is an elastic sort of love.
Josephine Baker

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.
Josephine Baker

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.
Josephine Baker

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

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?
Josephine Baker

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.
Josephine Baker

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

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

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

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?
Josephine Baker

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.
Josephine Baker

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

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

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

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

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.
Josephine Baker

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

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.
Josephine Baker

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