Vincent Van Gogh Quotes

I can't change the fact that my paintings don't sell. But the time will come when people will recognize that they are worth more than the value of the paints used in the picture.

I'm now painting with all the elan of a Marseillais eating soup, which won't surprise you when I tell you I'm painting large sunflowers. The idea? To decorate the studio, now there's hope of Gauguin living here. I aim at a dozen panels of sunflowers in the room I've set aside for Gauguin.

I am not strictly speaking mad, for my mind is absolutely normal in the intervals, and even more so than before. But during the attacks it is terrible - and then I lose consciousness of everything. But that spurs me on to work and to seriousness, as a miner who is always in danger makes haste in what he does.

To do good work one must eat well, be well housed, have one's fling from time to time, smoke one's pipe, and drink one's coffee in peace

As a painter I shall never signify anything of importance. I feel it Absolutely.

It constantly remains a source of disappointment to me that my drawings are not yet what I want them to be. The difficulties are indeed numerous and great, and cannot be overcome at once. To make progress is a kind of miner’s work; it doesn’t advance as quickly as one would like, and as others also expect, but as one stands before such a task, the basic necessities are patience and faithfulness. In fact, I do not think much about the difficulties, because if one thought of them too much one would get stunned or disturbed.

It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent.

No, no thought to the winnings. One loves because one loves.

I use color in a completely arbitrary way in order to express myself powerfully.

To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, who with irresistible force urges us towards more loving.

I want to get to the point where people say of my work, that man feels deeply.

Art is jealous, and demands our whole strength ... .

If one truly loves nature one finds beauty everywhere.

Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, 'What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.' Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.

Love a friend, love a wife, something, whatever you like, but one must love with a lofty and serious intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence, and one must always try to know deeper, better, and more.

Conscience is a man's compass.

Purity of soul and impurity of body can go together.

We take death to reach a star

If one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of going wrong, one must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then. Many people think that they will become good just by doing no harm -- but that's a lie.... That way lies stagnation, mediocrity.

By working hard, old man, I hope to make something good one day. I haven't yet, but I am pursuing it and fighting for it . . . .

Close friends are truly life's treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone.

I'll start with small things.

One can speak poetry just by arranging colors well, just as one can say comforting things in music.

Drawing is the root of everything.

Well, I dare not allow myself any illusions, and I am afraid it may never happen that Father and Mother will really appreciate my art. It is not their fault; we do not see the same things with the same eyes, or have the same thoughts raised in us by them. They will never be able to understand what painting is.

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 believe I do much better for the time being by first copying some good things than by working without that foundation

But after all I find in my work an echo of what struck me. I see that nature has told me something, has spoken to me, and that I have put it down in shorthand. In my shorthand there may be words that cannot be deciphered. There may be mistakes or gap

So often, a visit to a bookshop has cheered me, and reminded me that there are good things in the world.

It is only too true that a lot of artists are mentally ill - it's a life which, to put it mildly, makes one an outsider. I'm all right when I completely immerse myself in work, but I'll always remain half crazy.

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


What is drawing? How does one get there? It's working one's way through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. How can one get through that wall? - since hammering on it doesn't help at all. In my view, one must undermine the wall and grind through it slowly and patiently.

In general, and most especially with artists, I pay as much attention to the man who does the work, as to the work itself.

l can do very well without God both in my life and in my painting, but l cannot, ill as I am, do without something which is greater than l, which is my life — the power to create.

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.

Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague.

A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.

The painter of the future will be a colorist unlike anything yet.

And when I read, and really I do not read so much, only a few authors, - a few men that I discovered by accident - I do this because they look at things in a broader, milder and more affectionate way than I do, and because they know life better, so that I can learn from them.

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.

For loneliness, worries, difficulties, the unsatisfied need for kindness and sympathy - that is what is hard to bear.

Here everything is so wholly what I consider beautiful. In other words, there is peace here.

All art is a gift. It is first of all a gift that the maker can do it. It is then a gift to someone else, whether they pay for it or not. The wonder of it is that we cannot get the production of these gifts stopped. Art is life seeking itself. It is our intractable expressions of love for the beauties, ideas and epiphanies we regularly find. I framed the painting. It's now hanging in our den. "I have walked this earth for 30 years, and, out of gratitude, want to leave some souvenir.

I am a man of passions, capable of and subject to doing more or less foolish things- which I happen to regret, more or less, afterwards.

Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the truly passionate painter who dares-and who has once broken the spell of 'you can't.'

I always dream a painting like that, with a group of lively figures of the pals.

For the great doesn't happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together.

Often whole days pass without my speaking to anyone.