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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.

-Vincent Van Gogh

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I Must Continue To

Vincent Van Gogh

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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.

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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.

A Weaver Who Has To Direct And To Interweave A Great Many Little Threads Has No Time To Philosophize About It, But Rather He Is So Absorbed In His Work That He Doesn't Think But Acts, And He Feels How Things Must Go More Than He Can Explain It.

The Lamps Are Burning And The Starry Sky Is Over It All.

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.

There Is No Blue Without Yellow And Without Orange.

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.

My Brushwork Is Quite Unsystematic. I Slam The Paint On In All Sorts Of Ways And Leave Each Result To Take Care Of Itself.

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

One Must Work And Dare If One Really Wants To Live.

Painting Is Like Having A Bad Mistress Who Spends And Spends And It's Never Enough ... I Tell Myself That Even If A Tolerable Study Comes Out Of It From Time To Time, It Would Have Been Cheaper To Buy It From Somebody Else.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

How Can I Be Useful, Of What Service Can I Be? There Is Something Inside Me, What Can It Be?

Selfless Service

I Confess I Do Not Know Why, But Looking At The Stars Always Makes Me Dream.

I Would Like To Leave This World And Never Return. I Severed My Ear, But How I Wish That I Had Severed My Heart. I Shall Never Amount To Anything.

There Is Peace Even In The Storm

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

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.

We Take Death To Reach A Star

Find Things Beautiful As Much As You Can, Most People Find Too Little Beautiful.

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

In An Artist's Life, Death Is Perhaps Not The Most Difficult Thing.

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

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

Do Not Become The Slave Of Your Model.

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.

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

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

How Rich Art Is, If One Can Only Remember What One Has Seen, One Is Never Empty Of Thoughts Or Truly Lonely, Never Alone.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

For My Part I Know Nothing With Any Certainty, But The Sight Of The Stars Makes Me Dream.

The Large Majority Of People Are Asleep And Do Not Wish To Wake Up.

My Great Longing Is To Make Those Very Incorrectnesses, Those Deviations, Remodellings, Changes In Reality, So That They May Become, Yes, Lies If You Like - But Truer Than The Literal Truth.

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

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.

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.

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.

Here Everything Is So Wholly What I Consider Beautiful. In Other Words, There Is Peace Here.

I Always Dream A Painting Like That, With A Group Of Lively Figures Of The Pals.

As Long As Autumn Lasts, I Shall Not Have Hands, Canvas And Colors Enough To Paint The Beautiful Things I See.

I Believe It Is One's Duty To Paint The Rich And Magnificent Aspects Of Nature. We Need Gaiety And Happiness, Hope And Love.

Doing Little Things Well Is A Step Toward Doing Big Things Better.

Drawing Is The Root Of Everything.

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.

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

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

One Must Spoil As Many Canvases As One Succeeds With.

What A Simple Thing Death Is, Just As Simple As The Falling Of An Autumn Leaf.

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

It Is Only Too True That A Lot Of Artists Are Mentally Ill - It's A Life Which, To Put It Mildly, Makes One An Outsider. I'm All Right When I Completely Immerse Myself In Work, But I'll Always Remain Half Crazy.

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

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.

Painting Demands An Intelligent Model.

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.

Second Thoughts

...and Then, I Have Nature And Art And Poetry, And If That Is Not Enough, What Is Enough?

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.

Love Is Something Eternal.

There Was A Sentence In Your Letter That Struck Me, “i Wish I Were Far Away From Everything, I Am The Cause Of All, And Bring Only Sorrow To Everybody, I Alone Have Brought All This Misery On Myself And Others.” These Words Struck Me Because That Same Feeling, Just The Same, Not More Nor Less, Is Also On My Conscience.

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

Ah, Manet Has Come Very, Very Close To It And Courbet - The Marrying Of Form And Colour.

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.

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

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.

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.

That This Awareness Of My Own Fallibility Will Prevent Me From Making Many Mistakes Doesn't Alter The Fact That I'm Bound To Make A Great Many Mistakes Anyway. But If We Fall, We Get Up Again!

I Want To Touch People With My Art. I Want Them To Say "he Feels Deeply, He Feels Tenderly".

I Tried To Express Through Red And Green The Terrible Passions Of Humanity.

I Cannot Help Thinking That The Best Way Of Knowing God Is To Love Many Things. Love This Friend, This Person, This Thing, Whatever You Like, And You Will Be On The Right Road To Understanding Him Better.

To Exaggerate The Fairness Of Hair, I Come Even To Orange Tones, Chromes And Pale Yellow ... I Make A Plain Background Of The Richest, Intensest Blue That I Can Contrive, And By This Simple Combination Of The Bright Head Against The Rich Blue Background, I Get A Mysterious Effect, Like A Star In The Depths Of An Azure Sky.

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?

No, No Thought To The Winnings. One Loves Because One Loves.

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.

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 . . . .

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 The Painting That Makes Me So Happy These Days.

I Dream Of Painting And Then I Paint My Dream.

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

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

Do Not Quench Your Inspiration And Your Imagination; Do Not Become The Slave Of Your Model.

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

Purity Of Soul And Impurity Of Body Can Go Together.

We Are Surrounded By Poetry On All Sides.

I Take Great Care Of Myself By Carefully Shutting Myself Away.

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

Sometimes Art Seems To Be Something Very Sublime, And, As You Say, Something Sacred.

How Lovely Yellow Is! It Stands For The Sun.

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.

What Would Life Be If We Had No Courage To Attempt Anything?

What Lives In Art And Is Eternally Living, Is First Of All The Painter And Then The Painting.

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

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.

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.

If One Feels The Need Of Something Grand, Something Infinite, Something That Makes One Feel Aware Of God, One Need Not Go Far To Find It.

Normality Is A Paved Road: It’s Comfortable To Walk, But No Flowers Grow On It.

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

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

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.

Everywhere We Look, Complex Magic Of Nature Blazes Before Our Eyes.

I Lost My Job As An Art Salesman. It Was The Customer's Fault. He Wanted To Buy The Wrong Paintings.

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.

I Shouldn't Precisely Have Chosen Madness If There Had Been Any Choice, But Once Such A Thing Has Taken Hold Of You, You Can't Very Well Get Out Of It.

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

Color In A Picture Is Like Enthusiasm In Life.

Enthusiasm For Life

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

Don't Lose Heart If It's Very Difficult At Times, Everything Will Come Out All Right And Nobody Can In The Beginning Do As He Wishes.

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.

Yellow Is Capable Of Charming God.

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.

What Am I 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 One Day Like To Show By My Work What Such An Eccentric, Such A Nobody, Has In His Heart.

I Felt My Energy Return And That I Said To Myself, In Any Event I'll Recover From It, I'll Pick Up My Pencil That I Put Down In My Great Discouragement And I'll Get Back To Drawing, And From Then On, It Seems To Me, Everything Has Changed For Me.

Ah! Portraiture, Portraiture With The Thought, The Soul Of The Model In It, That Is What I Think Must Come.

What Is Drawing? It Is Working Oneself Through An Invisible Iron Wall That Seems To Stand Between What One Feels And What One Can Do.

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.

Just Slap Anything On When You See A Blank Canvas Staring You In The Face Like Some Imbecile. You Don't Know How Paralyzing That Is, That Stare Of A Blank Canvas Is, Which Says To The Painter, ‘you Can't Do A Thing’. The Canvas Has An Idiotic Stare And Mesmerizes Some Painters So Much That They Turn Into Idiots Themselves. Many Painters Are Afraid In Front Of The Blank Canvas, But The Blank Canvas Is Afraid Of The Real, Passionate Painter Who Dares And Who Has Broken The Spell Of `you Can't' Once And For All.

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.

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

Though I Am Often In The Depths Of Misery, There Is Still Calmness, Pure Harmony And Music Inside Me.

But You Must Love With A Sublime , Genuine , Profound Sympathy , With Devotion, With Intelligence , And You Must Try All The Time To Understand Him More, Better And Yet More. That Will Lead To God , That Will Lead To An Unshakeable Faith .

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

As We Advance In Life It Becomes More And More Difficult, But In Fighting The Difficulties The Inmost Strength Of The Heart Is Developed.

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.

Your Profession Is Not What Brings Home Your Weekly Paycheck, Your Profession Is What You're Put Here On Earth To Do, With Such Passion And Such Intensity That It Becomes Spiritual In Calling.

Man Is Not On The Earth Solely For His Own Happiness. He Is There To Realize Great Things For Humanity.

Since Visiting The Abatoirs Of S. France I Have Stopped Eating Meat.

I Am No Friend Of Present-day Christianity, Though Its Founder Was Sublime.

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.

The Sadness Will Last Forever.

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.

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

I Put My Heart And My Soul Into My Work, And Have Lost My Mind In The Process.

There Certainly Is An Affinity Between A Person And His Work, But It Is Not Easy To Define What This Affinity Is, And On That Question Many Judge Quite Wrongly.

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

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

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

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

Art, Although Produced By Man's Hands, Is Something Not Created By Hands Alone, But Something Which Wells Up From A Deeper Source Out Of Our Soul.....my Sympathies In The Literary As Well As In The Artistic Field Are Drawn Most Strongly To Those Artists In Whom I See Most The Working Of The Soul.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Only Time I Feel Alive Is When I'm Painting.

I Work As Diligently On My Canvases As The Laborers Do In Their Fields.

But For One's Health As You Say, It Is Very Necessary To Work In The Garden And See The Flowers Growing.

Flowers Growing

Spring Is The Fresh Green Of Young Corn And The Pink Blush Of Blossoms. Autumn Contrasts The Yellowed Foilage With Violet Hues. Winter Is The White Of Snow Against Its Black Forms ... Summer Is The Contrast Of Blues And The Golden Bronze Of The Corn.

You Have First To Experience What You Want To Express.

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.'

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?

So Often, A Visit To A Bookshop Has Cheered Me, And Reminded Me That There Are Good Things In The World.

As A Painter I Shall Never Signify Anything Of Importance. I Feel It Absolutely.

The Diseases That We Civilized People Labor Under Most Are Melancholy And Pessimism.

What Is Done In Love Is Done Well.

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

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

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.

The Cypresses Are Always Occupying My Thoughts.

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

Life Is Too Short

There Is But One Paris And However Hard Living May Be Here, And If It Became Worse And Harder Even—the French Air Clears Up The Brain And Does Good—a World Of Good.

Often Whole Days Pass Without My Speaking To Anyone.

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

Just Slap Something On It When You See A Blank Canvas Staring At You With A Sort Of Imbecility.

Conscience Is A Man's Compass.

If One Truly Loves Nature One Finds Beauty Everywhere.

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!'

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.

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.

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

There May Be A Time In Life When One Is Tired Of Everything And Feels As If All One Does Is Wrong, And There Maybe Some Truth In It- Do You Think This Is A Feeling One Must Try To Forget And To Banish, Or Is It 'the Longing For God,' Which One Must Not Fear, But Cherish To See If It May Bring Us Some Good? Is It 'the Longing For God' Which Leads Us To Make A Choice Which We Never Regret? Let Us Keep Courage And Try To Be Patient And Gentle. And Not Mind Being Eccentric, And Make Distinction Between Good And Evil.

Gauguin Says That When Sailors Have To Move A Heavy Load Or Raise An Anchor, They All Sing Together To Keep Them Up And Give Them Vim. That's Just What Artists Lack!

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

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

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.

The More You Love, The More You Suffer.

If You Work Diligently... Without Saying To Yourself Beforehand, 'i Want To Make This Or That,' If You Work As Though You Were Making A Pair Of Shoes, Without Artistic Preoccupation, You Will Not Always Find You Do Well. But The Days You Least Expect It, You Will Find A Subject Which Holds Its Own With The Work Of Those Who Have Gone Before.

You Have To First Experience What You Want To Express

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.

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.

Bookstores Always Remind Me That There Are Good Things In This World.

What Is True Is That I Have At Times Earned My Own Crust Of Bread, And At Other Times A Friend Has Given It To Me Out Of The Goodness Of His Heart. I Have Lived Whatever Way I Could, For Better Or For Worse, Taking Things Just As They Came.

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

The Sunflower Is Mine, In A Way.

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.

When We Are Working At A Difficult Task And Strive After A Good Thing, We Are Fighting A Righteous Battle, The Direct Reward Of Which Is That We Are Kept From Much Evil. As We Advance In Life It Becomes More And More Difficult, But In Fighting The Difficulties The Inmost Strength Of The Heart Is Developed.

A Good Picture Is Equivalent To A Good Deed.

To The One Party, Woman Is Always Heresy And Diabolical. To Me, The Opposite.

The Fishermen Know That The Sea Is Dangerous And The Storm Terrible, But They Have Never Found These Dangers Sufficient Reason For Remaining Ashore.

In Trees, I See Expression And Soul

I Assure You That There's A Lot Involved In Compositions With Figures. ... It's Like Weaving... You Must Control And Keep An Eye On Several Things At Once.

I Will Not Live Without Love.

If One Keeps Loving Faithfully What Is Really Worth Loving, And Does Not Waste One's Love On Insignificant And Unworthy And Meaningless Things, One Will Get More Light By And By And Grow Stronger.

Meaningless Things

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!!!

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.

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

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