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At One Time, The Earth Was Supposed To Be Flat. Well, So It Is, Even Today, From Paris To Asnieres. But That Fact Doesn't Prevent Science From Proving That The Earth As A Whole Is Spherical. No One Nowadays Denies It. Well...we Are Still At The Stage Of Believing That Life Itself Is Flat, The Distance From Birth To Death. Yet The Probability Is That Life, Too, Is Spherical And Much More Extensive And Capacious Than The Hemisphere We Know.

-Vincent Van Gogh

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At One Time, The

Vincent Van Gogh

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At One Time, The Earth Was Supposed To Be Flat. Well, So It Is, Even Today, From Paris To Asnieres. But That Fact Doesn't Prevent Science From Proving That The Earth As A Whole Is Spherical. No One Nowadays Denies It. Well...we Are Still At The Stage Of Believing That Life Itself Is Flat, The Distance From Birth To Death. Yet The Probability Is That Life, Too, Is Spherical And Much More Extensive And Capacious Than The Hemisphere We Know.

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More From Vincent Van Gogh

I Dream Of Painting And Then I Paint My Dream.

To Die For The Sake Of Dying - I Prefer To Die Of Passion Than To Die Of Boredom!

Still, There Is A Calm, Pure Harmony, And Music Inside Of Me.

What Is Drawing? How Does One Get There? It's Working One's Way Through An Invisible Iron Wall That Seems To Stand Between What One Feels And What One Can Do. How Can One Get Through That Wall? - Since Hammering On It Doesn't Help At All. In My View, One Must Undermine The Wall And Grind Through It Slowly And Patiently.

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.

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.

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.

Life Itself, Too, Is Forever Turning An Infinitely Vacant, Dispiriting Blank Side Towards Man On Which Nothing Appears, Any More Than It Does On A Blank Canvas. But No Matter How Vacant And Vain, How Dead Life May Appear To Be, The Man Of Faith, Of Energy, Of Warmth, Who Knows Something, Will Not Be Put Off So Easily.

And When I Read, And Really I Do Not Read So Much, Only A Few Authors, - A Few Men That I Discovered By Accident - I Do This Because They Look At Things In A Broader, Milder And More Affectionate Way Than I Do, And Because They Know Life Better, So That I Can Learn From Them.

Great Things Do Not Just Happen By Impulse, But As A Succession Of Small Things Linked Together.

If Boyhood And Youth Are But Vanity, Must It Not Be Our Ambition To Become Men?

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.

Nature Always Begins By Resisting The Artist, But He Who Really Takes It Seriously Does Not Allow That Resistance To Put Him Off His Stride; On The Contrary, It Is That Much More Of A Stimulus To Fight For Victory.

It Always Strikes Me, And It Is Very Peculiar, That, Whenever We See The Image Of Indescribable And Unutterable Desolation—of Loneliness, Poverty, And Misery, The End And Extreme Of Things—the Thought Of God Comes Into One's Mind.

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.

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.

Oh! I Must Somehow Manage To Do A Figure In A Few Strokes.

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.

I Don't Know Anything With Certainty, But Seeing The Stars Makes Me Dream.

I'll Start With Small Things.

To Try To Understand The Real Significance Of What The Great Artists, The Serious Masters, Tell Us In Their Masterpieces, That Leads To God; One Man Wrote Or Told It In A Book; Another, In A Picture.

For The Great Doesn't Happen Through Impulse Alone, And Is A Succession Of Little Things That Are Brought Together.

What Preys On My Mind Is Simply This One Question: What Am I Good For, Could I Not Be Of Service Or Use In Some Way?

There Is No Blue Without Yellow And Without Orange.

Many People Seem To Think It Foolish, Even Superstitious, To Believe That The World Could Still Change For The Better. And It Is True That In Winter It Is Sometimes So Bitingly Cold That One Is Tempted To Say, 'what Do I Care If There Is A Summer; Its Warmth Is No Help To Me Now.' Yes, Evil Often Seems To Surpass Good. But Then, In Spite Of Us, And Without Our Permission, There Comes At Last An End To The Bitter Frosts. One Morning The Wind Turns, And There Is A Thaw. And So I Must Still Have Hope.

It Is A Sad And Very Melancholy Scene, Which Must Strike Everyone Who Knows And Feels That We Also Have To Pass One Day Through The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death, And “que La Fin De La Vie Humaine, Ce Sont Des Larmes Ou Des Cheveux Blancs.” What Lies Beyond This Is A Great Mystery That Only God Knows, But He Has Revealed Absolutely Through His Word That There Is A Resurrection Of The Dead.

Shadow Of Death

You Can Feel The Stars And The Infinity Of The Sky Since Life, In Spite Of Everything, Is Like A Dream.

You Have First To Experience What You Want To Express.

Close Friends Are Truly Life's Treasures. Sometimes They Know Us Better Than We Know Ourselves. With Gentle Honesty, They Are There To Guide And Support Us, To Share Our Laughter And Our Tears. Their Presence Reminds Us That We Are Never Really Alone.

My Sketchbook Is A Witness Of What I Am Experiencing, Scribbling Things Whenever They Happen.

Whoever Lives Sincerely And Encounters Much Trouble And Disappointment Without Being Bowed Down Is Worth More Than One Who Has Always Sailed Before The Wind And Has Only Known Prosperity.

The Thing Has Already Taken Form In My Mind Before I Start It. The First Attempts Are Absolutely Unbearable. I Say This Because I Want You To Know That If You See Something Worthwhile In What I Am Doing, It Is Not By Accident But Because Of Real Direction And Purpose.

We Are Having Wind And Rain Here, And I Am Very Glad Not To Be Alone. I Work From Memory On Bad Days, And That Would Not Do If I Were Alone.

I Believe More And More That God Must Not Be Judged On This Earth. It Is One Of His Sketches That Has Turned Out Badly.

I Don't Know If I Can Convey The Postman As I Feel Him... Unfortunately He Cannot Pose, And A Painting Demands An Intelligent Model.

What Am I In Most People's Eyes? A Nonentity Or An Eccentric And Disagreeable Man... I Should Want My Work To Show What Is In The Heart Of Such An Eccentric, Of Such A Nobody.

I Long So Much To Make Beautiful Things. But Beautiful Things Require Effort And Disappointment And Perseverance.

I Am A Fanatic! I Feel A Power Within Me...a Fire That I May Not Quench, But Must Keep Ablaze.

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.

It Is A Pity That, As One Gradually Gains Experience, One Loses One's Youth.

Love Always Brings Difficulties, That Is True, But The Good Side Of It Is That It Gives Energy.

The Beginning Is Perhaps More Difficult Than Anything Else, But Keep Heart, It Will Turn Out All Right.

I Do Not Know Myself How I Paint It. I Sit Down With A White Board Before The Spot That Strikes Me. I Look At What Is Before My Eyes, And Say To Myself, That White Board Must Become Something.

It May Be True That There Is No God Here, But There Must Be One Not Far Off, And At Such A Moment One Feels His Presence; Which Comes To The Same As Saying (and I Readily Give This Sincere Profession Of Faith): I Believe In God, And That It Is His Wi

The More Ugly, Older, More Cantankerous, More Ill And Poorer I Become, The More I Try To Make Amends By Making My Colours More Vibrant, More Balanced And Beaming.

I Believe I Do Much Better For The Time Being By First Copying Some Good Things Than By Working Without That Foundation

A Likeness Different From The Products Of The God-fearing Photographer.

The Sunflower Is Mine, In A Way.

Success Is Sometimes The Outcome Of A Whole String Of Failures.

The Heart Of Man Is Very Much Like The Sea, It Has Its Storms, It Has Its Tides And In Its Depths It Has Its Pearls Too

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.

The Emotions Are Sometimes So Strong That I Work Without Knowing It. The Strokes Come Like Speech.

Yellow Is Capable Of Charming God.

Describing Starry Night: Firmament And Planets Both Disappeared, But The Mighty Breath Which Gives Life To All Things And In Which All Is Bound Up Remained.

Study, Analyse The Social Structure - That's Always Far More Effective Than Moralising.

Painting As It Is Now Promises To Become More Subtle - More Like Music And Less Like Sculpture - And Above All It Promises Color. If Only It Keeps This Promise.

Be Clearly Aware Of The Stars And Infinity On High. Then Life Seems Almost Enchanted After All.

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.

The More I Become Decomposed, The More Sick And Fragile I Am, The More I Become An Artist.

I Myself Am Quite Absorbed By The Delicate Yellow, Delicate Soft Green, Delicate Violet Of A Ploughed And Weeded Piece Of Soil.

In My View, I Am Often Immensely Rich, Not In Money, But (although Just Now Perhaps Not All The Time) Rich Because I Have Found My Metier, Something I Can Devote Myself To Heart And Soul And That Gives Inspiration And Meaning To My Life.

It Is Better To Be High-spirited Even Though One Makes More Mistakes, Than To Be Narrow-minded And All Too Prudent.

All Art Is A Gift. It Is First Of All A Gift That The Maker Can Do It. It Is Then A Gift To Someone Else, Whether They Pay For It Or Not. The Wonder Of It Is That We Cannot Get The Production Of These Gifts Stopped. Art Is Life Seeking Itself. It Is Our Intractable Expressions Of Love For The Beauties, Ideas And Epiphanies We Regularly Find. I Framed The Painting. It's Now Hanging In Our Den. "i Have Walked This Earth For 30 Years, And, Out Of Gratitude, Want To Leave Some Souvenir.

Love Is Eternal, The Aspect May Change, But Not The Essence.  

Wedding Anniversary

You Will Say That Everyone Has Seen Landscapes And Figures From Childhood On. The Question Is: Has Everybody Also Been Reflexive As A Child? Has Everybody Who Has Seen Them Also Loved Heath, Fields, Meadows, Woods, And The Snow And The Rain And The S.

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 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.

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.

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 Am Unable To Describe Exactly What Is The Matter With Me; Now And Then There Are Horrible Fits Of Anxiety, Apparently Without Cause, Or Otherwise A Feeling Of Emptiness And Fatigue In The Head.

I Have Played Hell Somewhat With The Truthfulness Of The Colours.

To Stick To The Present And Not Let It Pass Without Drawing Some Profit From It, That's What I Think Duty Is. ...let Us Perservere As Far As We Can Rather Today Than Tomorrow.

Even The Knowledge Of My Own Fallibility Cannot Keep Me From Making Mistakes. Only When I Fall Do I Get Up Again.

In General, And Most Especially With Artists, I Pay As Much Attention To The Man Who Does The Work, As To The Work Itself.

There Is A Sun, A Light That For Want Of Another Word I Can Only Call Yellow, Pale Sulphur Yellow, Pale Golden Citron. How Lovely Yellow Is!

Conscience Is A Man's Compass, And Though The Needle Sometimes Deviates, Though One Often Perceives Irregularities In Directing One's Course By It, Still One Must Try To Follow Its Direction.

Let’s Not Forget That The Little Emotions Are The Great Captains Of Our Lives And We Obey Them Without Realizing It.

The Canvas Has An Idiotic Stare And Mesmerises Some Painters So Much That They Turn Into Idiots Themselves.

Seek Only Light And Freedom And Do Not Immerse Yourself Too Deeply In The Worldly Mire.

I Am Not An Adventurer By Choice But By Fate.

I Am Astonished At The High Prices Paid For Works By Painters Who Are Dead, Prices None Of Them Could Expect When They Were Alive. It Is A Kind Of Tulip Trade, In Which Living Painters Suffer But Do Not Profit.

No Blue Without Yellow And Without Orange, And If You Do Blue, Then Do Yellow And Orange As Well, Surely.

Do Not Become The Slave Of Your Model.

It Is Looking At Things For A Long Time That Ripens You And Gives You A Deeper Meaning.

Seeing That I Am So Busily Occupied With Myself Just Now, I Want To Try To Paint My Self-portrait In Writing.

Painters Understand Nature And Love It, And Teach Us To See.

In A Sense I'm Glad That I've Never Learned How To Paint.

Art Is To Console Those Who Are Broken By Life.

If The Storm Within Gets Too Loud, I Take A Glass Too Much To Stun Myself.

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.

Do Not Think Too Deeply About These Things - Gradually They Will Become Clearer To You

To Suffer Without Complaint Is The Only Lesson We Have To Learn In This Life

It Was Richepin Who Said Somewhere, 'the Love Of Art Means Loss Of Real Love'... True, But On The Other Hand, Real Love Makes You Disgusted With Art.

To Know Life, One Must Love Many Things.

To Believe In God For Me Is To Feel That There Is A God, Not A Dead One, Or A Stuffed One, Who With Irresistible Force Urges Us Towards More Loving.

There Is Something Intimate About Painting I Cannot Explain To You ? But It Is So Delightful Just For Expressing One's Feelings.

For Me Work Is An Absolute Necessity, Indeed I Can't Really Drag It Out, I Take No More Pleasure In Anything Than In Work, That's To Say, Pleasure In Other Things Stops Immediately And I Become Melancholy If I Can't Get On With The Work.

Art Is Jealous, And Demands Our Whole Strength ... .

I Always Think Photographs Abominable, And I Don't Like To Have Them Around, Particularly Not Those Of Persons I Know And Love. Those Photographic Portraits Wither Much Sooner Than We Ourselves Do, Whereas The Painted Portrait Is A Thing Which Is Felt, Done With Love.

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.

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.'

For Great Things Do Not Done Just Happen By Impulse But Are A Succession Of Small Things Linked Together.

To Express Hope By Some Star, The Eagerness Of A Soul By A Sunset Radiance. Certainly There Is Nothing In That Of Stereoscopic Realism, But Is It Not Something That Actually Exists?

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.

If You Hear A Voice Within You Say 'you Cannot Paint,' Then By All Means Paint, And That Voice Will Be Silenced.

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.

I Wish They Would Take Me As I Am.

Take Me As I Am

Painting It Was Hard Graft. There Are One And A Half Large Tubes Of White In The Ground - Yet That Ground Is Very Dark.

You Have To First Experience What You Want To Express

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

I Feel The Need Of Relations And Friendship, Of Affection, Of Friendly Intercourse.... I Cannot Miss These Things Without Feeling, As Does Any Other Intelligent Man, A Void And A Deep Need.

And In A Picture I Want To Say Something Comforting, As Music Is Comforting.

...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?

Love Always Causes Trouble, That's True, But In Its Favour, It Energizes.

I Am Always Doing What I Can't Do Yet In Order To Learn How To Do It.

Often Whole Days Pass Without My Speaking To Anyone.

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.

And Love Makes One Calmer About Many Things, And In That Way, One Is More Fit For One's Work.

The More I Think About It, The More I Realize There Is Nothing More Artistic Than To Love Others.

Christ Alone, Of All The Philosophers, Magicians, Etc., Has Affirmed Eternal Life As The Most Important Certainty, The Infinity Of Time, The Futility Of Death, The Necessity And Purpose Of Serenity And Devotion. He Lived Serenely, As An Artist Greater Than All Other Artists, Scorning Marble And Clay And Paint, Working In The Living Flesh. In Other Words, This Peerless Artist, Scarcely Conceivable With The Blunt Instrument Of Our Modern, Nervous And Obtuse Brains, Made Neither Statues Nor Paintings Nor Books. He Maintained In No Uncertain Terms That He Made ... Living Men, Immortals.

Painting Is A Faith, And It Imposes The Duty To Disregard Public Opinion.

But On The Road That I'm On I Must Continue; If I Do Nothing, If I Don't Study, If I Don't Keep On Trying, Then I'm Lost, Then Woe Betide Me. That's How I See This, To Keep On, Keep On, That's What's Needed.

If I Were To Think Of And Dwell On Disastrous Possibilities, I Could Do Nothing. I Throw Myself Headlong Into My Work, And Come Up Again With My Studies.

I Work Even In The Middle Of The Day, In The Full Sunshine, And I Enjoy It Like A Cicada.

Painting Is A Faith And That It Brings With It The Duty To Pay No Heed To Public Opinion - And That In It One Conquers By Perseverance And Not By Giving In.

I Can't Change The Fact That My Paintings Don't Sell. But The Time Will Come When People Will Recognize That They Are Worth More Than The Value Of The Paints Used In The Picture.

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.

To Express The Love Of Two Lovers By A Marriage Of Two Complementary Colors, Their Mingling And Their Opposition, The Mysterious Vibrations Of Kindred Tones. To Express The Thought Of A Brow By The Radiance Of Light Tone Against A Somber Background; To Express Hope By Some Star, The Eagerness Of A Soul By A Sunset Radiance.

The World Concerns Me Only In So Far As I Feel A Certain Indebtedness And Duty Toward It Because I Have Walked This 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 Taste In Art, But To Express A Sincere Human Feeling.

For Myself, I Declare I Don't Know Anything About It. But The Sight Of The Stars Always Makes Me Dream.

Only When I Fall Do I Get Up Again.

Making Mistakes

The Laws Of The Colors Are Unutterably Beautiful, Just Because They Are Not Accidental.

The Great Isn't Something Accidental; It Must Be Willed.

I Am Risking My Life For My Work, And Half My Reason Has Gone.

Sometimes I Long So Much To Do Landscape, Just As One Would Go For A Long Walk To Refresh Oneself, And In All Of Nature, In Trees For Instance, I See Expression And A Soul.

I Can't Work Without A Model. I Won't Say I Turn My Back On Nature Ruthlessly In Order To Turn A Study Into A Picture, Arranging The Colors, Enlarging And Simplifying; But In The Matter Of Form I Am Too Afraid Of Departing From The Possible And The True.

So Let Us Go Forward Quietly, Each On His Own Path, Forever Making For The Light.

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.

Ideas For Work Are Coming To Me In Abundance...i'm Going Like A Painting-locomotive.

My Aim In Life Is To Make Pictures And Drawings, As Many And As Well As I Can; Then, At The End Of My Life... Looking Back With Love And Tender Regret, And Thinking, 'oh, The Pictures I Might Have Made!'

L Can Do Very Well Without God Both In My Life And In My Painting, But L Cannot, Ill As I Am, Do Without Something Which Is Greater Than L, Which Is My Life — The Power To Create.

By Working Hard, Old Man, I Hope To Make Something Good One Day. I Haven't Yet, But I Am Pursuing It And Fighting For It . . . .

When I Have A Terrible Need Of - Shall I Say The Word - Religion. Then I Go Out And Paint The Stars.

If We Study Japanese Art, We See A Man Who Is Undoubtedly Wise, Philosophic And Intelligent, Who Spends His Time Doing What? He Studies A Single Blade Of Grass.

The Only Thing To Do Is To Go One's Own Way, To Try One's Best, To Make The Thing Live.

A Good Painting Should Be The Equivalent Of A Good Deed.

One May Have A Blazing Hearth In One's Soul, And Yet No One Ever Comes To Sit By It.

Both She And I Have Grief Enough And Trouble Enough, But As For Regrets – Neither Of Us Have Any.

But I Always Think That The Best Way To Know God Is To Love Many Things.

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.

There Is Nothing More Beautiful Than Nature Early In The Morning.

Everyone Who Works With Love And With Intelligence Finds In The Very Sincerity Of His Love For Nature And Art A Kind Of Armor Against The Opinions Of Other People.

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.

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.

I Want To Paint What I Feel, And Feel What I Paint.

Drawing Is The Root Of Everything, And The Time Spent On That Is Actually All Profit.

A Good Picture Is Equivalent To A Good Deed.

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.

There Are Colors Which Cause Each Other To Shine Brilliantly, Which Form A Couple Which Complete Each Other Like Man And Woman.

The Sadness Will Last Forever.

Painting Demands An Intelligent Model.

It Interests Me Tremendously To Make Copies... I Started It By Chance And I Find It Teaches Me Things.

I Often Think That The Night Is More Alive And More Richly Colored Than The Day.

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.

Poetry Surrounds Us Everywhere, But Putting It On Paper Is, Alas, Not So Easy As Looking At It.

... Life Is Too Short To Do The Whole.

Life Is Too Short

Accurate Drawing, Accurate Colour, Is Perhaps Not The Essential Thing To Aim At, Because The Reflection Of Reality In A Mirror, If It Could Be Caught, Colour And All, Would Not Be A Picture At All, No More Than A Photograph.

That I Was Not Suited To Commerce Or Academic Study In No Way Proves That I Should Also Be Unfit To Be A Painter.

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 I Am Worth Anything Later, I Am Worth Something Now. For Wheat Is Wheat, Even If People Think It Is A Grass In The Beginning.

I Devour Nature Ceaselessly. I Exaggerate, Sometimes I Make Changes In The Subject; But Still I Don't Invent The Whole Picture. On The Contrary, I Find It Already There. It's A Question Of Picking Out What One Wants From Nature.

If Your Inner Voice Is Telling You That You Can't Paint, By All Means, Hurry Up And Paint And Silence The Voice.

We Must Not Judge God From This World. It's Just A Study That Didn't Come Off. It's Only A Master Who Could Make Such A Blunder.

I Never Get Tired Of The Blue Sky.

How Right It Is To Love Flowers And The Greenery Of Pines And Ivy And Hawthorn Hedges; They Have Been With Us From The Very Beginning.

There Are So Many People, Especially Among Our Comrades, Who Imagine That Words Are Nothing - On The Contrary, Isn't It True That Saying A Thing Well Is As Interesting And As Difficult As Painting It?

I Do Not Intend To Spare Myself, Not To Avoid Emotions Or Difficulties. I Don't Care Much Whether I Live A Longer Or Shorter Time... The World Concerns Me Only In So Far As I Feel A Certain Debt Toward It, Because I Have Walked On This Earth For Thirty Years, And Out Of Gratitude I Want To Leave Some Souvenir.

One Begins By Plaguing Oneself To No Purpose In Order To Be True To Nature, And One Concludes By Working Quietly From One's Own Palette Alone, And Then Nature Is The Result.

The Sight Of Stars Makes Me Dream.

To Express A Marriage Of Two Complementary Colors, Their Mingling And Their Opposition, The Mysterious Vibrations Of Kindred Tones.

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.

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.

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.

I Try More And More To Be Myself, Caring Relatively Little Whether People Approve Or Disapprove.

To Save A Life Is A Real And Beautiful Thing. To Make A Home For The Homeless, Yes, It Is A Thing That Must Be Good; Whatever The World May Say, It Cannot Be Wrong.

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.

Perhaps Someday Everyone Will Have Neurosis.

I Hope I Shall Be Able To Make Some Drawings In Which There Is Something Human.

I Am Still Far From Being What I Want To Be, But With God's Help I Shall Succeed.

The Great Artist Is The Simplifier.

When Using Colors To Recreate A General Harmony Of Tones In Nature, One Loses It By Painfully Exact Imitation. One Keeps It By Recreating In An Equivalent Color Range, And That May Not Be Exactly, Or Far From Exactly, Like The Model.

What Color Is In A Picture, Enthusiasm Is In Life.

Paintings Have A Life Of Their Own That Derives From The Painter's Soul.

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.

I Believe That It May Happen That One Will Succeed, And One Must Not Begin To Despair, Even Though Defeated Here And There; And Even Though One Sometimes Feels A Kind Of Decay, Though Things Go Differently From The Expected, It Is Necessary To Take Heart Again And New Courage. For The Great Things Are Not Done By Impulse, But By A Series Of Small Things Brought Together. And Great Things Are Not Something Accidental, But Must Certainly Be Willed. What Is Drawing? How Does One Learn It? It Is Working Through An Invisible Iron Wall That Seems To Stand Between What One Feels And What One Can Do.

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.

It's As Interesting And As Difficult To Say A Thing Well As To Paint It. There Is The Art Of Lines And Colours, But The Art Of Words Exists Too, And Will Never Be Less Important.

For Instead Of Trying To Reproduce Exactly What I See Before Me, I Make More Arbitrary Use Of Colour To Express Myself More Forcefully.

Keep Your Love Of Nature, For That Is The True Way To Understand Art More And More.

Those Dutchmen Had Hardly Any Imagination Or Fantasy, But Their Good Taste And Their Scientific Knowledge Of Composition Were Enormous.

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William Lyon Mackenzie King

George Jean Nathan

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