Vincent Van Gogh Quotes

What is drawing? It is working oneself through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do.

We are surrounded by poetry on all sides.

Often whole days pass without my speaking to anyone, except to ask for diner or coffee. And it has been like that form the beginning.

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

I've never felt a desire (and I don't believe I ever shall) to bring the public to my work... a certain popularity seems to me the least desirable of things.

One should arrive at leading one's conscience to a state of development so that it becomes the voice of a better and higher self, of which the ordinary self is a servant.

Someday death will take us to another star.

Love is eternal -- the aspect may change, but not the essence. There is the same difference in a person before and after he is in love as there is in an unlighted lamp and one that is burning. The lamp was there and was a good lamp, but now it is shedding light too, and that is its real function. And love makes one calmer about many things, and that way, one is more fit for one's work.

One must work and dare if one really wants to live.

The laws of the colors are unutterably beautiful, just because they are not accidental.

In trees, I see expression and soul

There is the same difference in a person before and after he is in love, as there is in an unlighted lamp and one that is burning.

To express a marriage of two complementary colors, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones.

What is done in love is done well.

I am always in the hope to express the love of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors - colors which marry each other... complement each other as a man and a woman do.

Everyone who works with love and with intelligence finds in the very sincerity of his love for nature and art a kind of armor against the opinions of other people.

And in a picture I want to say something comforting, as music is comforting.

I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.

If your inner voice is telling you that you can't paint, by all means, hurry up and paint and silence the voice.

As long as autumn lasts, I shall not have hands, canvas and colors enough to paint the beautiful things I see.

I wanted to make people think of a totally different way of living from that which we, educated people, live. I would absolutely not want anyone to find it beautiful or good without a thought.

The world concerns me only in so far as I have a certain debt and duty to it, because I have lived in it for thirty years and owe to it to leave behind some souvenir in the shape of drawings and paintings – not done to please any particular movement, but within which a genuine human sentiment is expressed.

How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?

Both she and I have grief enough and trouble enough, but as for regrets – neither of us have any.

Let life be beautiful like summer flowers and death be like autumn leaves. Rabindranath Tagore What a simple thing death is, just as simple as the falling of an autumn leaf.

I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.

Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and continuous observations. By persistent, I mean not only continuous work, but also not giving up your opinion at the bidding of such and such a person.

I will not live without love.

Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.

Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me.

The thing has already taken form in my mind before I start it. The first attempts are absolutely unbearable. I say this because I want you to know that if you see something worthwhile in what I am doing, it is not by accident but because of real direction and purpose.

Let me stop there, but my God, how beautiful Shakespeare is, who else is as mysterious as he is; his language and method are like a brush trembling with excitement and ecstasy. But one must learn to read, just as one must learn to see and learn to live.

The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting.

At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to me that night is still more richly coloured than the day; having hues of the most intense violets, blues and greens. If only you pay attention to it you will see that certain stars are lemon-yellow, others pink or a green, blue and forget-me-not brilliance. And without my expatiating on this theme it is obvious that putting little white dots on the blue-black is not enough to paint a starry sky.

I think that I still have it in my heart someday to paint a bookshop with the front yellow and pink in the evening...like a light in the midst of the darkness.

Life is not long for anybody, and the problem is only to make something of it.

The victory one would gain after a whole life of work and effort is better than one that is gained sooner.

It's better to have a gay life of it than to commit suicide.

My brushwork is quite unsystematic. I slam the paint on in all sorts of ways and leave each result to take care of itself.

If one keeps loving faithfully what is really worth loving, and does not waste one's love on insignificant and unworthy and meaningless things, one will get more light by and by and grow stronger.

For myself, I declare I don't know anything about it. But the sight of the stars always makes me dream.

Admire as much as you can. Most people do not admire enough.

The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too

The sadness will last forever.

What a splendid thing watercolour is to express atmosphere and distance, so that the figure is surrounded by air and can breathe in it.

Whatever plan one makes, there is a hidden difficulty somewhere.

Fortunately for me, I know well enough what I want, and am basically utterly indifferent to the criticism that I work to hurriedly. In answer to that, I have done some things even more hurriedly theses last few days.

Just slap something on it when you see a blank canvas staring at you with a sort of imbecility.