I do not intend to spare myself, not to avoid emotions or difficulties. I don't care much whether I live a longer or shorter time... the world concerns me only in so far as I feel a certain debt toward it, because I have walked on this earth for thirty years, and out of gratitude I want to leave some souvenir.

What I need is courage, and this often fails me. And it is also a fact that since my disease, when I am in the fields I am overwhelmed by a feeling of loneliness to such a horrible extent that I shy away from going out. But this will change all the same as time goes on. Only when I stand a painting before my easel do I feel somewhat alive. Never mind, this is going to change too, for now my health is so good that I suppose the physical part of me will gain the victory.

Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague.

Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney and then go on their way.

Let us keep courage and try to be patient and gentle. And let us not mind being eccentric, and make distinction between good and evil.

Well, do you know what I hope for, once I allow myself to begin to hope? [...] That you find in your love for people something not only to work for, but to comfort and restore you when there is a need.

That this awareness of my own fallibility will prevent me from making many mistakes doesn't alter the fact that I'm bound to make a great many mistakes anyway. But if we fall, we get up again!