Vincent Van Gogh Quotes

If I did not succeed I still thought that what I had worked on would be continued. Not immediately. But there are others who believe in things that are true.

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.

It seems to me it's a painter's duty to try to put an idea into his work.

There is a sun, a light that for want of another word I can only call yellow, pale sulphur yellow, pale golden citron. How lovely yellow is!

I am astonished at the high prices paid for works by painters who are dead, prices none of them could expect when they were alive. It is a kind of tulip trade, in which living painters suffer but do not profit.

What a simple thing death is, just as simple as the falling of an autumn leaf.

I began to paint again, even though I could barely hold the brush, but knowing exactly what I wanted to paint, I began three more large canvases... of large wheat fields under cloudy skies, and it did not take a great deal to express sadness and loneliness... I believe these paintings say what words cannot.

It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning.

What has changed is that my life then was less difficult and my future seemingly less gloomy, but as far as my inner self, my way of looking at things and of thinking is concerned, that has not changed. But if there has indeed been a change, then it is that I think, believe and love more seriously now what I thought, believed and loved even then.

Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it.

To the one party, woman is always heresy and diabolical. To me, the opposite.

If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle.

The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.

But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.

You can feel the stars and the infinity of the sky since life, in spite of everything, is like a dream.

Art is but imitation of nature.

I feel such a creative force in me: I am convinced that there will be a time when, let us say, I will make something good every day , on a regular basis....I am doing my very best to make every effort because I am longing so much to make beautiful things. But beautiful things mean painstaking work, disappointment, and perseverance.

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.

And painted portraits have a life of their own that comes from deep in the soul of the painter and where the machine can't go.

Surely the true path is to dive deep into nature.

In my view, I am often immensely rich, not in money, but (although just now perhaps not all the time) rich because I have found my metier, something I can devote myself to heart and soul and that gives inspiration and meaning to my life.

I am painting with the same enthusiasm as a Marseillaise eats bouillabaisse ... I am painting big sunflowers.

Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.

I must continue to follow the path I take now. If I do nothing, if I study nothing, if I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it - keep going, keep going come what may.

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.

Nature always begins by resisting the artist, but he who really takes it seriously does not allow that resistance to put him off his stride; on the contrary, it is that much more of a stimulus to fight for victory.

Conscience is a man's compass, and though the needle sometimes deviates, though one often perceives irregularities in directing one's course by it, still one must try to follow its direction.

I never get tired of the blue sky.

When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.

Man is not on the earth solely for his own happiness. He is there to realize great things for humanity.

As practice makes perfect, I cannot but make progress; each drawing one makes, each study one paints, is a step forward.

To paint nature you must be in it a long time.

We spent our whole lives in unconsous excercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of words

You have first to experience what you want to express.

Love always causes trouble, that's true, but in its favour, it energizes.

One must never let the fire go out in one's soul, but keep it burning.

The more ugly, older, more cantankerous, more ill and poorer I become, the more I try to make amends by making my colours more vibrant, more balanced and beaming.

To stick to the present and not let it pass without drawing some profit from it, that's what I think duty is. ...let us perservere as far as we can rather today than tomorrow.

But I must work on in full calmness and serenity... The world concerns me only in so far as I feel a certain debt and duty towards it, because I have walked on the earth for thirty years, and out of gratitude want to leave some souvenir in the shape of drawings or pictures, not made to please a certain tendency in art, but to express a sincere human feeling. So this work is the aim-and through concentration upon that one idea, everything one does is simplified. Now the work goes slowly-a reason the more to lose no time.

The wheat field has ...poetry; it is like a memory of something one has once seen. We can only make our pictures speak.

The more you love, the more you suffer.

Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.

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.

It is with the reading of books the same as with looking at pictures; one must, without doubt, without hesitations, with assurance, admire what is beautiful.

Great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed.

I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.

No blue without yellow and without orange, and if you do blue, then do yellow and orange as well, surely.

I assure you that there's a lot involved in compositions with figures. ... It's like weaving... you must control and keep an eye on several things at once.