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It Must Be A Good Thing To Die Conscious Of Having Performed Some Real Good, And To Know That By This Work One Will Live, At Least In The Memory Of Some, And Will Have Left A Good Example To Those That Come After. A Work That Is Good-it May Not Be Eternal, But The Thought Expressed In It Is, And The Work Itself Will Certainly Remain In Existence For A Long, Long Time; And If Afterwards Others Arise, They Can Do No Better Than Follow In The Footsteps Of Such Predecessors And Do Their Work In The Same Way.

-Vincent Van Gogh

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It Must Be A

Vincent Van Gogh

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It Must Be A Good Thing To Die Conscious Of Having Performed Some Real Good, And To Know That By This Work One Will Live, At Least In The Memory Of Some, And Will Have Left A Good Example To Those That Come After. A Work That Is Good-it May Not Be Eternal, But The Thought Expressed In It Is, And The Work Itself Will Certainly Remain In Existence For A Long, Long Time; And If Afterwards Others Arise, They Can Do No Better Than Follow In The Footsteps Of Such Predecessors And Do Their Work In The Same Way.

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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.

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.

And Painted Portraits Have A Life Of Their Own That Comes From Deep In The Soul Of The Painter And Where The Machine Can't Go.

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

It Is Good To Love Many Things

One Must Spoil As Many Canvases As One Succeeds With.

Let Us Keep Courage And Try To Be Patient And Gentle. And Let Us Not Mind Being Eccentric, And Make Distinction Between Good And Evil.

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

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.

For Loneliness, Worries, Difficulties, The Unsatisfied Need For Kindness And Sympathy - That Is What Is Hard To Bear.

An Artist Needn't Be A Clergyman Or A Churchwarden, But He Certainly Must Have A Warm Heart For His Fellow Men.

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.

Whatever Plan One Makes, There Is A Hidden Difficulty Somewhere.

One Must Learn To Read, Just As One Must Learn To See And Learn To Live.

I Was Certainly Going The Right Way For A Stroke When I Left Paris. I Paid For It Nicely Afterwards! When I Stopped Drinking, When I Stopped Smoking So Much, When I Began To Think Again Instead Of Trying Not To Think - Good Lord, The Depression And The Prostration Of It! Work In These Magnificent Natural Surroundings (arles) Has Restored My Morale, But Even Now Some Efforts Are Too Much For Me: My Strength Fails Me.

Do You Know What Makes The Prison Disappear? Every Deep, Genuine Affection. Being Friends, Being Brothers, Loving, That Is What Opens The Prison, With Supreme Power, By Some Magic Force. Without These One Stays Dead. But Whenever Affection Is Revived, There Life Revives.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

We Take Death To Reach A Star

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.

We Have Very Beautiful Bad Weather Here At Present - Rain, Wind, Thunder - But With Splendid Effects; That's Why I Like It.

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

You Have First To Experience What You Want To Express.

Art Is But Imitation Of Nature.

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

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.

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.

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

Yellow Is Capable Of Charming God.

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

I Never Get Tired Of The Blue Sky.

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

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

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.'

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.

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

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.

I've Just Kept On Ceaselessly Painting In Order To Learn Painting.

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.

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.

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

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

Painting Demands An Intelligent Model.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

The Majority Of (painters), Because They Aren't Colorists, Do Not See Yellow, Orange Or Sulphur In The South (of France) And They Call A Painter Mad If He Sees With Eyes Other Than Theirs

The Wheat Field Has ...poetry; It Is Like A Memory Of Something One Has Once Seen. We Can Only Make Our Pictures Speak.

In The End We Shall Have Had Enough Of Cynicism, Skepticism And Humbug, And We Shall Want To Live More Musically.

I Wish They Would Take Me As I Am.

Take Me As I Am

Art Demands Constant Observation.

We Are Surrounded By Poetry On All Sides.

I Feel A Certain Calm. There Is Safety In The Midst Of Danger. What Would Life Be If We Had No Courage To Attempt Anything?

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

Flowers Growing

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

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

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 I Succeed In Putting Some Warmth And Love Into The Work, Then It Will Find Friends. Carrying On Working Is The

You Have To First Experience What You Want To Express

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

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

Someday Death Will Take Us To Another Star.

The More You Love, The More You Suffer.

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.

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.

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.

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.

One Can Never Study Nature Too Much And Too Hard

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

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

It Constantly Remains A Source Of Disappointment To Me That My Drawings Are Not Yet What I Want Them To Be. The Difficulties Are Indeed Numerous And Great, And Cannot Be Overcome At Once. To Make Progress Is A Kind Of Miner’s Work; It Doesn’t Advance As Quickly As One Would Like, And As Others Also Expect, But As One Stands Before Such A Task, The Basic Necessities Are Patience And Faithfulness. In Fact, I Do Not Think Much About The Difficulties, Because If One Thought Of Them Too Much One Would Get Stunned Or Disturbed.

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.

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

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.

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

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 .

Do Not Become The Slave Of Your Model.

I Am Not An Adventurer By Choice But By Fate.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 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 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.

Drawing Is The Root Of Everything.

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

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.

In Trees, I See Expression And Soul

It Seems To Me It's A Painter's Duty To Try To Put An Idea Into His Work.

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!'

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

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

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.

There Is No Blue Without Yellow And Without Orange, And If You Put In Blue, Then You Must Put In Yellow, And Orange Too, Mustn't You? Oh Well, You Will Tell Me That What I Write To You Are Only Banalities.

I Consciously Choose The Dog's Path Through Life. I Shall Be Poor; I Shall Be A Painter.

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.

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.

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

A Woman Is Not Old As Long As She Loves And Is Loved

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.

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.

The Sight Of Stars Makes Me Dream.

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

It Is Difficult To Know Oneself, But It Isn't Easy To Paint Oneself Either.

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

Wedding Anniversary

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.

Though I Am Often In The Depths Of Misery, There Is Still Calmness, Pure Harmony And Music Inside Me. I See Paintings Or Drawings In The Poorest Cottages, In The Dirtiest Corners. And My Mind Is Driven Towards These Things With An Irresistible Momentum.

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

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.

The Sunflower Is Mine, In A Way.

Only When I Fall Do I Get Up Again.

Making Mistakes

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.

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

Selfless Service

Great Things Are Not Something Accidental, But Must Certainly Be Willed.

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

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

It Is With The Reading Of Books The Same As With Looking At Pictures; One Must, Without Doubt, Without Hesitations, With Assurance, Admire What Is Beautiful.

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

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.

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

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

The Cypresses Are Always Occupying My Thoughts.

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

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.

Life Is Not Long For Anybody, And The Problem Is Only To Make Something Of It.

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

What Is Done In Love Is Done Well.

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 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?

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

The Worse I Get Along With People The More I Learn To Have Faith In Nature And Concentrate On Her.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

To Know Life, One Must Love Many Things.

It Is True That Every Day Has Its Own Evil, And Its Good Too. But How Difficult Must Life Be, Especially Farther On When The Evil Of Each Day Increases As Far As Worldly Things Go, If It Is Not Strengthened And Comforted By Faith. And In Christ All Worldly Things May Become Better, And, As It Were, Sanctified. Theo, Woe Is Me If I Do Not Preach The Gospel; If I Did Not Aim At That And Possess Faith And Hope In Christ, It Would Be Bad For Me Indeed, But No I Have Some Courage.

I Am An Artist... It's Self-evident That What That Word Implies Is Looking For Something All The Time Without Ever Finding It In Full. It Is The Opposite Of Saying, 'i Know All About It. I've Already Found It.' As Far As I'm Concerned, The Word Means, 'i Am Looking. I Am Hunting For It. I Am Deeply Involved.'

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.

The Great Artist Is The Simplifier.

Purity Of Soul And Impurity Of Body Can Go Together.

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.

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.

I Want To Get To The Point Where People Say Of My Work, That Man Feels Deeply.

One Must Never Let The Fire Go Out In One's Soul, But Keep It Burning.

I Am Seeking, I Am Striving, I Am In It With All My Heart.

I Sometimes Think There Is Nothing So Delightful As Drawing.

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.

I Dream Of Painting And Then I Paint My Dream.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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 Played Hell Somewhat With The Truthfulness Of The Colours.

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

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.

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

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

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.

It Must Be A Good Thing To Die Conscious Of Having Performed Some Real Good, And To Know That By This Work One Will Live, At Least In The Memory Of Some, And Will Have Left A Good Example To Those That Come After. A Work That Is Good-it May Not Be Eternal, But The Thought Expressed In It Is, And The Work Itself Will Certainly Remain In Existence For A Long, Long Time; And If Afterwards Others Arise, They Can Do No Better Than Follow In The Footsteps Of Such Predecessors And Do Their Work In The Same Way.

One May Have A Blazing Hearth In One's Soul And Yet No One Ever Came To Sit By It. Passers-by See Only A Wisp Of Smoke From The Chimney And Continue On Their Way.

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

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

What Molting Time Is To Birds, So Adversity Or Misfortune Is ... For Us Humans.

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.

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

Love Is Something Eternal.

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

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?

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

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.

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Joshua L. Liebman

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