"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. But what is your final goal, you may ask. That goal will become clearer, will emerge slowly but surely, much as the rough draught turns into a sketch, and the sketch into a painting through the serious work done on it, through the elaboration of the original vague idea and through the consolidation of the first fleeting and passing thought."
Quote collection
Vincent Van Gogh quotes (page 8 of 21)
417 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I tried to express through red and green the terrible passions of humanity."
"Cobalt is a divine color and there is nothing as fine for putting an atmosphere round things. Carmine is the red of wine and is warm and lively like wine. The same goes for emerald green too. It's false economy to dispense with them, with those colors. Cadmium as well."
"The beginning is perhaps more difficult than anything else, but keep heart, it will turn out all right."
"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"
"Christ is more of an artist than the artists; he works in the living spirit and the living flesh, he makes men instead of statues."
"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."
"It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning."
"Occasionally, in times of worry, I've longed to be stylish, but on second thought I say no-just let me be myself-and express rough, yet true things with rough workmanship."
"I am always in the hope to express the love of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors - colors which marry each other... complement each other as a man and a woman do."
"The sadness will last forever."
"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."
"The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech."
"Rembrandt is so deeply mysterious that he says things for which there are no words in any language."
"The diseases that we civilized people labor under most are melancholy and pessimism."
"Often whole days pass without my speaking to anyone, except to ask for diner or coffee. And it has been like that form the beginning."
"In trees, I see expression and soul"
"I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream."
"No, no thought to the winnings. One loves because one loves."
"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."