Quote collection
417 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"We feel lonely now and then and long for friends and think we should be quite different and happier if we found a friend of whom we might say: “He is the one.” But you, too, will begin to learn that there is much self-deception behind this longing; if we yielded too much to it, it would lead us from the road."
"I see drawings and pictures in the poorest huts, in the dirtiest corner. And my mind is drawn toward these things by an irresistible force."
"Well, I am ploughing on my canvases as they do on their fields (the peasants). It goes badly enough in our profession - in fact that has always been so, but at the moment it is very bad."
"As a painter I shall never signify anything of importance. I feel it Absolutely."
"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."
"I myself believe that there is in every painter's life a period of making absurdities. In my case I think that period is already long past."
"If one has such an encounter it is to be expected it will bring him into conflict, especially conflict with himself, because one sometimes literally does not know what to do or what not to do. But is this struggle and even the mistakes one may make, not better, and do they not develop us more than if we keep systematically away from emotions?"
"There is no blue without yellow and without orange, and if you put in blue, then you must put in yellow, and orange too, mustn't you? Oh well, you will tell me that what I write to you are only banalities."
"I believe that one thinks much more soundly if the thoughts arise from direct contact with things, than if one looks at things with the aim of finding this or that in them."
"If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things."
"I want to paint what I feel, and feel what I paint."
"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."
"In an artist's life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing."
"My brushwork is quite unsystematic. I slam the paint on in all sorts of ways and leave each result to take care of itself."
"It is true that every day has its own evil, and its good too. But how difficult must life be, especially farther on when the evil of each day increases as far as worldly things go, if it is not strengthened and comforted by faith. And in Christ all worldly things may become better, and, as it were, sanctified. Theo, woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel; if I did not aim at that and possess faith and hope in Christ, it would be bad for me indeed, but no I have some courage."
"Love is something eternal."
"There is nothing more beautiful than nature early in the morning."
"The Mediterranean has the color of mackerel, changeable I mean. You don't always know if it is green or violet, you can't even say it's blue, because the next moment the changing reflection has taken on a tint of rose or gray."
"Here everything is so wholly what I consider beautiful. In other words, there is peace here."
"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."