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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.

-Vincent Van Gogh

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Many People Seem To

Vincent Van Gogh

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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.

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In The Fullness Of Artistic Life There Is, And Remains, And Will Always Come Back At Times, That Homesick Longing For The Truly Ideal Life That Can Never Come True.

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

If You End Up Falling In Love With Someone, It's Because Of Them. If You End Up Hating Someone, It's Because Of You.

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We Take Death To Reach A Star

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.

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.

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

Do You Know That Drawing With Words Is Also An Art... ?

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.

The Sadness Will Last Forever.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 . . . .

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

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

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.

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!!!

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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An Artist Need Not Be A Minister Or A Collector In Church, But He Must Have A Warm Heart For People, And I Find It A Noble Thing That, For Example, No Winter Passed Without The Graphic Doing Something To Keep Alive Sympathy For The Poor.

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.

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

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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.

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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'll Start With Small Things.

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Perhaps Someday Everyone Will Have Neurosis.

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.

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.

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

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?

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'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.

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

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

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

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

If You Work With Love And Intelligence, You Develop A Kind Of Armour Against People's Opinions, Just Because Of The Sincerity Of Your Love For Nature And Art. Nature Is Also Severe And, To Put It That Way, Hard, But Never Deceives And Always Helps You To Move Forward.

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

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

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

Do Not Become The Slave Of Your Model.

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

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.

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.

The Uglier, Older, Meaner, Iller, Poorer I Get, The More I Wish To Take My Revenge By Doing Brilliant Color, Well Arranged, Resplendent.

Christ Is More Of An Artist Than The Artists; He Works In The Living Spirit And The Living Flesh, He Makes Men Instead Of Statues.

It Astonishes Me Already When I Compare My Condition Today With What It Was A Month Ago. Before That I Knew Well Enough One Could Fracture One's Legs And Arms And Recover Afterward, But I Did Not Know That You Could Fracture The Brain In Your Head And Recover From That Too.

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

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

If One Truly Loves Nature One Finds Beauty Everywhere.

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

If You Study Japanese Art You See A Man Who Is Undoubtedly Wise, Philosophic And Intelligent, Who Spends His Time How? In Studying The Distance Between The Earth And The Moon? No. In Studying The Policy Of Bismarck? No. He Studies A Single Blade Of Grass. But This Blade Of Grass Leads Him To Draw Every Plant And Then The Seasons, The Wide Aspects Of The Countryside, Then Animals, Then The Human Figure. So He Passes His Life, And Life Is Too Short To Do The Whole.

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.

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

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.

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!

Yellow Is Capable Of Charming God.

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

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.

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 Of The Hardest Things To Do Is To Paint Darkness Which Nonetheless Has Light In It.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

If One Were To Say But Few Words, Though Ones With Meaning, One Would Do Better Than To Say Many That Were Only Empty Sounds, And Just As Easy To Utter As They Were Of Little Use.

We Are Surrounded By Poetry On All Sides.

We Spent Our Whole Lives In Unconsous Excercise Of The Art Of Expressing Our Thoughts With The Help Of Words

There Is No Blue Without Yellow And Without Orange.

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

Well, I Dare Not Allow Myself Any Illusions, And I Am Afraid It May Never Happen That Father And Mother Will Really Appreciate My Art. It Is Not Their Fault; We Do Not See The Same Things With The Same Eyes, Or Have The Same Thoughts Raised In Us By Them. They Will Never Be Able To Understand What Painting Is.

I Use Color In A Completely Arbitrary Way In Order To Express Myself Powerfully.

I Think That I Still Have It In My Heart Someday To Paint A Bookshop With The Front Yellow And Pink In The Evening...like A Light In The Midst Of The Darkness.

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.

But After All I Find In My Work An Echo Of What Struck Me. I See That Nature Has Told Me Something, Has Spoken To Me, And That I Have Put It Down In Shorthand. In My Shorthand There May Be Words That Cannot Be Deciphered. There May Be Mistakes Or Gap

The More You Love, The More You Suffer.

Van Gogh Was So Under Appreciated In His Time, He Sold Only One Of His 900 Paintings While Alive. Posthumously, He Became One Of The Most Famous Artists Of All Time And His Work Is Now Considered Priceless. Oh The Irony.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

There Is Peace Even In The Storm

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!'

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

You Have First To Experience What You Want To Express.

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 .

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

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.

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

The Sight Of Stars Makes Me Dream.

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

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.

There Is No Such Thing As An Ugly Woman.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Suffice It To Say That Black And White Are Also Colors... For Their Simultaneous Contrast Is As Striking As That Of Green And Red, For Instance.

Black And White

I Am Painting With The Same Enthusiasm As A Marseillaise Eats Bouillabaisse ... I Am Painting Big Sunflowers.

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.

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

Flowers Growing

Rembrandt Is So Deeply Mysterious That He Says Things For Which There Are No Words In Any Language.

One Must Spoil As Many Canvases As One Succeeds With.

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

It's Better To Have A Gay Life Of It Than To Commit Suicide.

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

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

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.

It Is The Painting That Makes Me So Happy These Days.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

If Only We Try To Live Sincerely, It Will Go Well With Us, Even Though We Are Certain To Experience Real Sorrow, And Great Disappointments, And Also Will Probably Commit Great Faults And Do Wrong Things, But It Certainly Is True, Thatit Is Better To Be High-spirited, Even Though One Makes More Mistakes, Than To Be Narrow-minded And All Too Prudent. It Is Good To 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 Well Done.

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.'

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

Exaggerate The Essential, Leave The Obvious Vague.

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?

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.

Modern Reality Has Got Such A Hold On Us That... When We Attempt To Reconstruct The Ancient Days In Our Thoughts...the Minor Events Of Our Lives Tear Us Away From Our Meditations, And... Thrust Us Back Into Our Personal [problems]

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.

Art Demands Persistent Work, Work In Spite Of Everything, And Continuous Observations. By Persistent, I Mean Not Only Continuous Work, But Also Not Giving Up Your Opinion At The Bidding Of Such And Such A Person.

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

Life Is Too Short

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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