I have two loves: my country and Paris. — Josephine Baker

Art is an elastic sort of love. — Josephine Baker

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

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

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

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

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. — Josephine Baker

Let us stop saying ‘white Americans’ and ‘colored Americans,’ let us try once and for all saying… Americans. Let human beings be equal on Earth as in Heaven. — 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

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. — Josephine Baker

I shall dance all my life. . . . I would like to die, breathless, spent, at the end of a dance. — Josephine Baker

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

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. — Josephine Baker

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? — Josephine Baker

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

One dance had made me the most famous colored woman in the world. — Josephine Baker

To realise our dreams we must decide to wake up. — Josephine Baker

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

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. — Josephine Baker

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. — Josephine Baker

I wasn’t really naked. I simply didn’t have any clothes on. — Josephine Baker

I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad. — 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