You are on the eve of a complete victory. You can't go wrong. The world is behind you.
Josephine BakerRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Education is essential for self-protection and empowerment, advocating for knowledge over violence.
In this quote, Josephine Baker emphasizes the critical importance of education as a means of self-defense and empowerment. She advocates for the power of knowledge and communication—instead of resorting to violence—as a way to navigate the world, urging individuals to acquire skills and wisdom from their educational pursuits to better protect themselves and society.
Themes
EducationSelf-ProtectionKnowledgeEmpowermentNon-Violence
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used as a motivational speech opener at a school assembly.
More from Josephine Baker
All quotes →I ran away from St. Louis, and then I ran away from the United States, because of that terror of discrimination.
Josephine BakerRead
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 BakerRead
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 BakerRead
I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more.
Josephine BakerRead
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 BakerRead
Similar quotes
No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.
Twyla TharpRead
If you're studying from a book and trying to listen in on a conversation at the same time, those are two separate projects, each started and maintained by distinct circuits in the brain. Pay more attention to one for a moment and you're automatically paying less attention to the other.
Daniel LevitinRead
They're fancy talkers about themselves, writers. If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.
Lillian HellmanRead
Education is not simply to learn to read and write. It's emancipation. It makes you free.
Ziauddin YousafzaiRead
Having enough to eat, being able to educate your children, have reasonably stable employment, and being able to live in a society which isn't collapsing around you-all of these things have been generally eroded.
Susan GeorgeRead
A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people - people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.
E. B. WhiteRead