I would like to leave this world and never return. I severed my ear, but how I wish that I had severed my heart. I shall never amount to anything.

I see more and more that my work goes infinitely better when I am properly fed, and the paints are there, and the studio and all that... I wish I could manage to make you really understand that when you give money to artists, you are yourself doing an artist's work, and that I only want my pictures to be of such a quality that you will not be too dissatisfied with your work.

I will not live without love.

I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove.

Love is eternal, the aspect may change, but not the essence. 


An artist need not be a minister or a collector in church, but he must have a warm heart for people, and I find it a noble thing that, for example, no winter passed without The Graphic doing something to keep alive sympathy for the poor.

The great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. And great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed.