Vincent Van Gogh Quotes & Sayings

That is how I look at it; to continue, to continue, that is what is necessary. — Vincent Van Gogh

So what do you want? Does what happens inside show on the outside? There is such a great fire in one's soul, and yet nobody ever comes to warm themselves there, and passersby see nothing but a little smoke coming from the top of the chimney, and go on their way. — Vincent Van Gogh

Surely the true path is to dive deep into nature. — Vincent Van Gogh

The more you love, the more you suffer — Vincent Van Gogh

In order to work and to become an artist one needs love. At least, one who wants sentiment in his work must in the first place feel it himself, and live with his heart. — Vincent Van Gogh

I tried to express through red and green the terrible passions of humanity. — Vincent Van Gogh

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

I hope I shall be able to make some drawings in which there is something human. — Vincent Van Gogh

The great isn't something accidental; it must be willed. — Vincent Van Gogh

I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process. — Vincent Van Gogh

As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed. — Vincent Van Gogh

She and I are two unhappy ones who keep together and carry our burdens together, and in this way unhappiness is changed to joy, and the unbearable becomes bearable. — Vincent Van Gogh

It is no more easy to make a good picture than it is to find a diamond or a pearl. It means trouble and you risk your life for it. — Vincent Van Gogh

The painter of the future will be a colorist unlike anything yet. — Vincent Van Gogh

Love is eternal
the aspect may change, but not the essence. There is the same difference in a person before and after he is in love as there is in an unlighted lamp and one that is burning. The lamp was there and was a good lamp, but now it is shedding light too, and that is its real function. And love makes one calmer about many things, and that way, one is more fit for one's work. — Vincent Van Gogh

Against all expectations, the symptoms of Van Gogh's mental illness are conspicuous by their almost complete absence from his letters. Much as he chose not to paint before he had fully recovered from one of his attacks, so he refrained from writing at times of crisis. Throughout his life, admittedly, his letters bear witness to a man possessed, frequently agitated, enraged, dejected, obsessed, but never deranged, or emotionally or intellectually unstable. — Vincent Van Gogh

No blue without yellow and without orange, and if you do blue, then do yellow and orange as well, surely. — Vincent Van Gogh

I am no friend of present-day Christianity, though its Founder was sublime. — Vincent Van Gogh

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. — Vincent Van Gogh

Looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map.
Why, I ask myself, shouldn't the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France?
Just as we take a train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star. We cannot get to a star while we are alive any more than we can take the train when we are dead. So to me it seems possible that cholera, tuberculosis and cancer are the celestial means of locomotion. Just as steamboats, buses and railways are the terrestrial means.
To die quietly of old age would be to go there on foot. — Vincent Van Gogh

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 ... — Vincent Van Gogh

So let us go forward quietly, each on his own path, forever making for the light. — Vincent Van Gogh

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day. — Vincent Van Gogh

Suffice it to say that black and white are also colors ... for their simultaneous contrast is as striking as that of green and red, for instance. — Vincent Van Gogh

My interest in drawing has died down here in England, but maybe I'll be in the mood again some day or other. Right now I am doing a great deal of reading — Vincent Van Gogh

We are surrounded by poetry on all sides... — Vincent Van Gogh

There is the same difference in a person before and after he is in love, as there is in an unlighted lamp and one that is burning. — Vincent Van Gogh

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

One should arrive at leading one's conscience to a state of development so that it becomes the voice of a better and higher self, of which the ordinary self is a servant. — Vincent Van Gogh

What I am in the eyes of most people - a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person - somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then - even if that were absolutely true, then I should like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. — Vincent Van Gogh

Love is something eternal. — Vincent Van Gogh

I began to paint again, even though I could barely hold the brush, but knowing exactly what I wanted to paint, I began three more large canvases ... of large wheat fields under cloudy skies, and it did not take a great deal to express sadness and loneliness ... I believe these paintings say what words cannot. — Vincent Van Gogh

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. — Vincent Van Gogh

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

In would rather die of passion than of boredom. — Vincent Van Gogh

I want to do drawings which touch some people ... In either figure or landscape I wish to express, not sentimental melancholy, but serious sorrow. — Vincent Van Gogh

A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke — Vincent Van Gogh

Love always causes trouble, that's true, but in its favour, it energizes. — Vincent Van Gogh

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. — Vincent Van Gogh

I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed. — Vincent Van Gogh

People are often unable to do anything, imprisoned as they are in I don't know what kind of terrible, terrible, oh such terrible cage. — Vincent Van Gogh

Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney and then go on their way. — Vincent Van Gogh

If I succeed in putting some warmth and love into the work, then it will find friends. Carrying on working is the — Vincent Van Gogh

An artist need not be a minister or a collector in church, but he must have a warm heart for people, and I find it a noble thing that, for example, no winter passed without The Graphic doing something to keep alive sympathy for the poor. — Vincent Van Gogh

You can't be at the pole and the equator at the same time. You must choose your own line, as I hope to do, and it will probably be color. — Vincent Van Gogh

Where friendship blooms, life is reborn. — Vincent Van Gogh

I wanted to make people think of a totally different way of living from that which we, educated people, live. I would absolutely not want anyone to find it beautiful or good without a thought. — Vincent Van Gogh

How rich art is, if one can only remember what one has seen, one is never empty of thoughts or truly lonely, never alone. — Vincent Van Gogh

I myself am quite absorbed by the delicate yellow, delicate soft green, delicate violet of a ploughed and weeded piece of soil. — Vincent Van Gogh

Art is something greater and higher than our own skill or knowledge or learning. That art is something which, though produced by human hands, is not wrought by hands alone, but wells up from a deeper source, from a man's soul. — Vincent Van Gogh

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. — Vincent Van Gogh

I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process. — Vincent Van Gogh

To look at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots of a map representing towns and villages. Why, I ask myself, should the shining dots of the sky not be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France? — Vincent Van Gogh

A likeness different from the products of the God-fearing photographer. — Vincent Van Gogh

Just dash something down if you see a blank canvas staring at you with a certain imbecility. You do not know how paralyzing it is, that staring of a blank canvas which says to the painter: you don't know anything. — Vincent Van Gogh

Painters understand nature and love it, and teach us to see. — Vincent Van Gogh

You have first to experience what you want to express. — Vincent Van Gogh

Someday death will take us to another star. — Vincent Van Gogh

Conscience is a man's compass. — Vincent Van Gogh

One of the most beautiful things to do is to paint darkness, which nevertheless has light in it. — Vincent Van Gogh

I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart. — Vincent Van Gogh

Color in a picture is like enthusiasm in life. — Vincent Van Gogh

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. — Vincent Van Gogh

Life is too short to do the whole. — Vincent Van Gogh

Ah! My dear friend painting is to us what the music of Berlioz and Wagner was before us - a consolatory art for sore hearts! And yet there are only a few like you and me who feel it!!! — Vincent Van Gogh

Even this artistic life, which we know is not real life, appears to me to be so alive and so vital that it would be a form ingratitude not to be content with it. — Vincent Van Gogh

Art is to console those who are broken by life. — Vincent Van Gogh

The simple minded know many things that the wise ignore — Vincent Van Gogh

It interests me tremendously to make copies ... I started it by chance and I find it teaches me things. — Vincent Van Gogh

I know for sure that I have an instinct for color, and that it will come to me more and more, that painting is in the very marrow of my bones. — Vincent Van Gogh

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.' — Vincent Van Gogh

Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all. — Vincent Van Gogh

But what I wanted to say is this: After the period of melancholy is over you will be stronger than before, you will recover your health, & you will find the scenery round you so beautiful that you will want nothing but paint — Vincent Van Gogh

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 ... — Vincent Van Gogh

Find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful. — Vincent Van Gogh

I often think of you all, one cannot do what one wants in life. The more you feel attached to a spot, the more ruthlessly you are compelled to leave it, but the memories remain, and one remembers - as in a looking glass, darkly - one's absent friends. — Vincent Van Gogh

Do go on doing a lot of walking and keep up your love of nature, for that is the right way to understand art better and better. Painters understand nature and love her and teach us to see. And there are painters who never do anything that is no good... — Vincent Van Gogh

How to achieve such anomalies, such alterations and re-fashionings of reality so what comes out of it are lies, if you like, but lies that are more than literal truth. — Vincent Van Gogh

What I need is courage, and this often fails me. And it is also a fact that since my disease, when I am in the fields I am overwhelmed by a feeling of loneliness to such a horrible extent that I shy away from going out. But this will change all the same as time goes on. Only when I stand a painting before my easel do I feel somewhat alive. Never mind, this is going to change too, for now my health is so good that I suppose the physical part of me will gain the victory. — Vincent Van Gogh

The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting. — Vincent Van Gogh

My house here is painted the yellow colour of fresh butter on the outside, with glaringly green shutters; it stands in full sunlight in a square that has a green garden with plane trees, oleanders and acacias. It is completely whitewashed inside, with a floor made of red bricks. And over it there is the intensely blue sky. In this house I can love and breathe, meditate and paint. — Vincent Van Gogh

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. — Vincent Van Gogh

The sight of stars makes me dream. — Vincent Van Gogh

It seems to me it's a painter's duty to try to put an idea into his work. — Vincent Van Gogh

If one were to say but few words, though ones with meaning, one would do better than to say many that were only empty sounds, and just as easy to utter as they were of little use. — Vincent Van Gogh

The victory one would gain after a whole life of work and effort is better than one that is gained sooner. — Vincent Van Gogh

Since visiting the abatoirs of S. France I have stopped eating meat. — Vincent Van Gogh

I lost my job as an art salesman. It was the customer's fault. He wanted to buy the wrong paintings. — Vincent Van Gogh

The lamps are burning and the starry sky is over it all. — Vincent Van Gogh

Painting demands an intelligent model. — Vincent Van Gogh

The cure for him would be to take a good long look at some potato plants, which have lately had such a deep and distinctive colour and tone, instead of driving himself mad looking at pieces of yellow satin and gold leather. — Vincent Van Gogh

Try to walk as much as you can, and keep your love for nature, for that is the true way to learn to understand art more and more. Painters understand nature and love her and teach us to see her. If one really loves nature, one can find beauty everywhere. — Vincent Van Gogh

The sadness will last forever. — Vincent Van Gogh

There is peace even in the storm — Vincent Van Gogh

But for one's health as you say, it is very necessary to work in the garden and see the flowers growing. — Vincent Van Gogh

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? — Vincent Van Gogh

My brushwork is quite unsystematic. I slam the paint on in all sorts of ways and leave each result to take care of itself. — Vincent Van Gogh

The worse I get along with people the more I learn to have faith in Nature and concentrate on her. — Vincent Van Gogh

I want to paint what I feel, and feel what I paint. — Vincent Van Gogh

The best pictures are always those one dreams of when one is smoking a pipe in bed, but which never get done. But still one ought to try, however incompetent one may feel before the unspeakable perfection and radiant splendour of nature. — Vincent Van Gogh