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.

Painting is a faith and that it brings with it the duty to pay no heed to public opinion - and that in it one conquers by perseverance and not by giving in.

The more ugly, old, nasty, ill, and poor I become the more I want to get my own back by producing vibrant, well-arranged, radiant colour.

The cure for him would be to take a good long look at some potato plants, which have lately had such a deep and distinctive colour and tone, instead of driving himself mad looking at pieces of yellow satin and gold leather.

Christ alone, of all the philosophers, magicians, etc., has affirmed eternal life as the most important certainty, the infinity of time, the futility of death, the necessity and purpose of serenity and devotion. He lived serenely, as an artist greater than all other artists, scorning marble and clay and paint, working in the living flesh. In other words, this peerless artist, scarcely conceivable with the blunt instrument of our modern, nervous and obtuse brains, made neither statues nor paintings nor books. He maintained in no uncertain terms that he made ... living men, immortals.

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.

Van Gogh was so under appreciated in his time, he sold only one of his 900 paintings while alive. Posthumously, he became one of the most famous artists of all time and his work is now considered priceless. Oh the irony.