Quote

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

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Josephine Baker
Age: 68 †
Born: 1906
Born: June 3
Died: 1975
Died: April 12
Actor
Dancer
Film Actor
Jazz Musician
Model
Singer
Street Artist
Vedette
St. Louis
Missouri
Freda Josephine McDonald
Joséphine Baker
Importance
Disappeared
Whose
Dangers
Danger
Trace
Learning
Oblivion
Names
Victims
Making
Followed
Without
Recognition
Yawning
Time
Victim
Sensed

More quotes by Josephine Baker

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I like Frenchmen very much, because even when they insult you they do it so nicely.
Josephine Baker
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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
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He was my cream, and I was his coffee - And when you poured us together, it was something.
Josephine Baker
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The old Catholic parties hounded me with a Christian hatred from station to station, city to city, one stage to another.
Josephine Baker
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Oh, you young people act like old men. You have no fun.
Josephine Baker
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The secret to the fountain of youth is to think youthful thoughts.
Josephine Baker
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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
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Beautiful? It's all a question of luck. I was born with good legs. As for the rest... beautiful, no. Amusing, yes.
Josephine Baker
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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
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You must get an education. You must go to school, and you must learn to protect yourself. And you must learn to protect yourself with the pen, and not the gun.
Josephine Baker
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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
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You are on the eve of a complete victory. You can't go wrong. The world is behind you.
Josephine Baker
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I have two loves: my country and Paris.
Josephine Baker
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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
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The white imagination is sure something when it comes to blacks.
Josephine Baker
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My people have a country of their own to go to if they choose... Africa... but, this America belongs to them just as much as it does to any of the white race... in some ways even more so, because they gave the sweat of their brow and their blood in slavery so that many parts of America could become prosperous and recognized in the world.
Josephine Baker
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To realise our dreams we must decide to wake up.
Josephine Baker
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I ran away from St. Louis, and then I ran away from the United States, because of that terror of discrimination.
Josephine Baker
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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
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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.
Josephine Baker