Famous Quotes

Quotes by Vincent Van Gogh

• A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.
• An artist needn't be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.
• As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.
• But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.
• Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination do not become the slave of your model.
• Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.
• Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.
• I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed.
• I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.
• 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.
• I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
• I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.
• If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?
• 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.
• If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
• In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.
• It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality is more important than the feeling for pictures.
• Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.
• One must work and dare if one really wants to live.
• Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.
• Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.
• The best way to know God is to love many things.
• The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.
• The way to know life is to love many things.
• There may be a great fire in our hearts, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke.
• Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.
• What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?
• When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.