"Study, analyse the social structure - that's always far more effective than moralising."
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Vincent Van Gogh quotes (page 16 of 21)
417 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"When I have a model who is quiet and steady and with whom I am acquainted, then I draw repeatedly 'til there is one drawing that is different from the rest, which does not look like an ordinary study, but more typical and with more feeling."
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"I have a firm faith in art, a firm confidence in its being a powerful stream which carries a man to a harbor, though he himself must do his bit too."
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"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."
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"Painting it was hard graft... in addition red, yellow, brown ochre, black, terra sienna, bistre, and the result is a red-brown that varies from bistre to deep wine-red and to pale, blond reddish."
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"One of the reasons why I have no regular job, and why I have not had a regular job for years, is quite simply that my ideas differ from those of the gentlemen who hand out the jobs to individuals who think as they do. It is not just a question of my appearance, which is what they have sanctimoniously reproached me with. It goes deeper, I do assure you."
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"How rich art is, if one can only remember what one has seen, one is never empty of thoughts or truly lonely, never alone."
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"At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to me that night is still more richly coloured than the day; having hues of the most intense violets, blues and greens. If only you pay attention to it you will see that certain stars are lemon-yellow, others pink or a green, blue and forget-me-not brilliance. And without my expatiating on this theme it is obvious that putting little white dots on the blue-black is not enough to paint a starry sky."
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"To know life, one must love many things."
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"It is not only by one's impulses that one achieves greatness, but also by patiently filing away the steel wall that separates what one feels from what one is capable of doing."
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"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."
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"At times it is not easy for me to take up living again."
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"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."
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"Ah! Portraiture, portraiture with the thought, the soul of the model in it, that is what I think must come."
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"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."
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"It is good to love many things"
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"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."
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"I've never felt a desire (and I don't believe I ever shall) to bring the public to my work... a certain popularity seems to me the least desirable of things."
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"But what's your ultimate goal, you'll say. That goal will become clearer, will take shape slowly and surely, as the croquis becomes a sketch and the sketch a painting, as one works more seriously, as one digs deeper into the originally vague idea, the first fugitive, passing thought, unless it becomes firm."
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"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.'"
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