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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
-Vincent Van Gogh
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The Heart Of Man

Vincent Van Gogh
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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

Understanding the Quote: "the heart of man is very much like the sea, it has..."

This quote by Vincent Van Gogh reflects deeply on the theme of heart. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Heart, Men, Sea, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Vincent Van Gogh interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh is celebrated for insightful thoughts on heart and men. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Heart
Men
Sea
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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.
Heart
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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.
Art
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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.
Disappointment
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Painting Demands An Intelligent Model.
Intelligent
Demand
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The Canvas Has An Idiotic Stare And Mesmerises Some Painters So Much That They Turn Into Idiots Themselves.
Canvas
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Staring
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.
Wise
Art
Intelligent
Only When I Fall Do I Get Up Again.
Fall
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Get Up
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.
Love
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Admire As Much As You Can. Most People Do Not Admire Enough.
People
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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.
Men
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But You People Do Not Understand Me, And I Am Afraid You Never Will.
People
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I Lost My Job As An Art Salesman. It Was The Customer's Fault. He Wanted To Buy The Wrong Paintings.
Art
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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.
Mistress
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Painting
Often Whole Days Pass Without My Speaking To Anyone.
Being Alone
Creativity
Whole
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.
Mean
Risk
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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.
Heart
Eye
Men
In Trees, I See Expression And Soul
Expression
Tree
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What Would Life Be If We Had No Courage To Attempt Anything?
Being Strong
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Courage
One Can Never Study Nature Too Much And Too Hard
Nature
Too Much
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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!
Moving
Artist
Anchors
Art Is To Console Those Who Are Broken By Life.
Art
Broken
Art Is
You Have To First Experience What You Want To Express
Want
Firsts
What You Want
Art Is But Imitation Of Nature.
Art
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Art Is
The Mediterranean Has The Color Of Mackerel, Changeable I Mean. You Don't Always Know If It Is Green Or Violet, You Can't Even Say It's Blue, Because The Next Moment The Changing Reflection Has Taken On A Tint Of Rose Or Gray.
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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.
Woe Is Me
Ideas
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I Want To Touch People With My Art. I Want Them To Say "he Feels Deeply, He Feels Tenderly".
Art
People
Want
When I Have A Terrible Need Of - Shall I Say The Word - Religion. Then I Go Out And Paint The Stars.
Nature
Stars
Ignorance
My Opinion Is That The Best Thing Would Be To Work On Till Art Lovers Feel Drawn Toward It Of Their Own Accord, Instead Of Having To Praise Or To Explain It.
Art
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Opinion
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.
Love
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Artist
I Try More And More To Be Myself, Caring Relatively Little Whether People Approve Or Disapprove.
Caring
People
Trying
I Want To Get To The Point Where People Say Of My Work, That Man Feels Deeply.
Men
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Want
I Take Great Care Of Myself By Carefully Shutting Myself Away.
Care
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.
Art
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I Have Played Hell Somewhat With The Truthfulness Of The Colours.
Truth
Hell
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A Good Painting Should Be The Equivalent Of A Good Deed.
Deeds
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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!
Art
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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
Mistake
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What Lives In Art And Is Eternally Living, Is First Of All The Painter And Then The Painting.
Art
Firsts
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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.
Eye
Heart
People
It Seems To Me It's A Painter's Duty To Try To Put An Idea Into His Work.
Artist
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Trying
Though I Am Often In The Depths Of Misery, There Is Still Calmness, Pure Harmony And Music Inside Me.
Depth
Misery
Harmony
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Do You Know That Drawing With Words Is Also An Art... ?
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You Have First To Experience What You Want To Express.
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Since Visiting The Abatoirs Of S. France I Have Stopped Eating Meat.
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Bookstores Always Remind Me That There Are Good Things In This World.
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Yellow Is Capable Of Charming God.
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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.
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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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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.
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Keep Your Love Of Nature, For That Is The True Way To Understand Art More And More.
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Love Always Brings Difficulties, That Is True, But The Good Side Of It Is That It Gives Energy.
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To Suffer Without Complaint Is The Only Lesson We Have To Learn In This Life
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So Let Us Go Forward Quietly, Each On His Own Path, Forever Making For The Light.
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There Are Colors Which Cause Each Other To Shine Brilliantly, Which Form A Couple Which Complete Each Other Like Man And Woman.
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In Spite Of Everything, I Shall Rise Again
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I've Just Kept On Ceaselessly Painting In Order To Learn Painting.
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An Artist Needn't Be A Clergyman Or A Churchwarden, But He Certainly Must Have A Warm Heart For His Fellow Men.
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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.
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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.
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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!'
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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.
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Ah! Portraiture, Portraiture With The Thought, The Soul Of The Model In It, That Is What I Think Must Come.
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Soul
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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.
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I Never Get Tired Of The Blue Sky.
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At Times It Is Not Easy For Me To Take Up Living Again.
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We Have Very Beautiful Bad Weather Here At Present - Rain, Wind, Thunder - But With Splendid Effects; That's Why I Like It.
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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.
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Goal
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The Emotions Are Sometimes So Strong That I Work Without Knowing It. The Strokes Come Like Speech.
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And Love Makes One Calmer About Many Things, And In That Way, One Is More Fit For One's Work.
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Man Is Not On The Earth Solely For His Own Happiness. He Is There To Realize Great Things For Humanity.
Men
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Earth
What Is Done In Love Is Done Well.
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Positivity
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I Hope I Shall Be Able To Make Some Drawings In Which There Is Something Human.
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Humanity
Able
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.
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One Must Work And Dare If One Really Wants To Live.
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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.
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I Am Seeking, I Am Striving, I Am In It With All My Heart.
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I Often Think That The Night Is More Alive And More Richly Colored Than The Day.
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There Is Something Intimate About Painting I Cannot Explain To You ? But It Is So Delightful Just For Expressing One's Feelings.
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Intimacy
The More I Think About It, The More I Realize There Is Nothing More Artistic Than To Love Others.
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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.
Mother
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Father
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]
Reality
Meditation
Tears
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.
Coffee
Diners
Form
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?
Stars
Sunset
Reality
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.
Art
Color
Promise
Both She And I Have Grief Enough And Trouble Enough, But As For Regrets – Neither Of Us Have Any.
Regret
Grief
Trouble
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.
Memories
Rain
Bad Day
Well, I Am Ploughing On My Canvases As They Do On Their Fields (the Peasants). It Goes Badly Enough In Our Profession - In Fact That Has Always Been So, But At The Moment It Is Very Bad.
Ploughing
Fields
Facts
It Is Looking At Things For A Long Time That Ripens You And Gives You A Deeper Meaning.
Time
Giving
Long
For Instead Of Trying To Reproduce Exactly What I See Before Me, I Make More Arbitrary Use Of Colour To Express Myself More Forcefully.
Color
Trying
Arbitrary
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.
Art
Interesting
Important
Exaggerate The Essential, Leave The Obvious Vague.
Essentials
Obvious
Starry Night
For Loneliness, Worries, Difficulties, The Unsatisfied Need For Kindness And Sympathy - That Is What Is Hard To Bear.
Kindness
Loneliness
Worry
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.
Life
Night
Giving
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!!!
Art
Painting
Like You
What Color Is In A Picture, Enthusiasm Is In Life.
Color
Enthusiasm
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.
Trying
Ugly
Ill
The More I Become Decomposed, The More Sick And Fragile I Am, The More I Become An Artist.
Health
Artist
Sick
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.
Believe
Thinking
Looks
The Great Isn't Something Accidental; It Must Be Willed.
Study, Analyse The Social Structure - That's Always Far More Effective Than Moralising.
Morality
Study
Social
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.'
Mean
Artist
Hunting
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.
Baby
Needs
Infinite
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.
Artist
Giving
Wish
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.
Light
Meaningless Things
Stronger
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.
Loneliness
Believe
Sadness
If I Succeed In Putting Some Warmth And Love Into The Work, Then It Will Find Friends. Carrying On Working Is The
And Love
Carrying On
Succeed
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.
Writing
Blue
Yellow
To Die For The Sake Of Dying - I Prefer To Die Of Passion Than To Die Of Boredom!
Passion
Boredom
Dying
My Sketchbook Is A Witness Of What I Am Experiencing, Scribbling Things Whenever They Happen.
Sketchbooks
Witness
Happens
Great Things Are Not Something Accidental, But Must Certainly Be Willed.
Great Things
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.
Color
Lines
Equator
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.
Wife
Trying
Serious
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.
Men
Forever
Energy
I Always Dream A Painting Like That, With A Group Of Lively Figures Of The Pals.
Dream
Groups
Pals
I Don't Know Anything With Certainty, But Seeing The Stars Makes Me Dream.
Inspirational
Dream
Art
The Wheat Field Has ...poetry; It Is Like A Memory Of Something One Has Once Seen. We Can Only Make Our Pictures Speak.
Memories
Wheat Fields
Speak
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.
Woe Is Me
Evil
Would Be
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.
Inspirational
Art
People
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.
People
Facts
Painting
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.
Real
Broken
Passionate
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.
Judging
World
Study
The Diseases That We Civilized People Labor Under Most Are Melancholy And Pessimism.
People
Disease
Pessimism
Rembrandt Is So Deeply Mysterious That He Says Things For Which There Are No Words In Any Language.
Mysterious
Language
Do Not Think Too Deeply About These Things - Gradually They Will Become Clearer To You
Inspirational
Thinking
I Tried To Express Through Red And Green The Terrible Passions Of Humanity.
Passion
Humanity
Green
I Consciously Choose The Dog's Path Through Life. I Shall Be Poor; I Shall Be A Painter.
Dog
Path
Poor
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.
Suffering
Alive
Kind
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!
Mistake
Fall
Facts
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.
Soul
Portraits
Machines
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.
Intelligent
Demand
Painting
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.
Sound
Use
Littles
One Must Spoil As Many Canvases As One Succeeds With.
Succeed
Spoil
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.
Dream
Perfection
Smoking
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.
Worry
Second Thoughts
Stylish
It Interests Me Tremendously To Make Copies... I Started It By Chance And I Find It Teaches Me Things.
Education
Chance
Teach
The Only Time I Feel Alive Is When I'm Painting.
Art
Passion
Alive
A Woman Is Not Old As Long As She Loves And Is Loved
Long
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.
Judging
Easy
Affinity
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.
Wine
Color
Atmosphere
I Myself Am Quite Absorbed By The Delicate Yellow, Delicate Soft Green, Delicate Violet Of A Ploughed And Weeded Piece Of Soil.
Nature
Yellow
Pieces
The Only Thing To Do Is To Go One's Own Way, To Try One's Best, To Make The Thing Live.
Trying
Way
Things To Do
Fortunately For Me, I Know Well Enough What I Want, And Am Basically Utterly Indifferent To The Criticism That I Work To Hurriedly. In Answer To That, I Have Done Some Things Even More Hurriedly Theses Last Few Days.
Inspirational
Criticism
Done
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.
Real
Taken
Mind
The Sight Of Stars Makes Me Dream.
Dream
Stars
Sight
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.
Lying
Shadow Of Death
One Day
I Will Not Live Without Love.
Love
Without Love
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.
Mistake
Lying
Thinking
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.
Stars
Night
Blue
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.
Brain
Legs
Arms
Life Is Not Long For Anybody, And The Problem Is Only To Make Something Of It.
Long
Problem
Life Is
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.
Heart
Fighting
Order
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.
Lying
Reality
Deceit
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.
Gratitude
Art
Years
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.
Gratitude
Years
Earth
The Sunflower Is Mine, In A Way.
Sunflower
Way
Mines
One Of The Hardest Things To Do Is To Paint Darkness Which Nonetheless Has Light In It.
Light
Darkness
Painting
One Must Learn To Read, Just As One Must Learn To See And Learn To Live.
I Sometimes Think There Is Nothing So Delightful As Drawing.
Thinking
Drawing
Sketching
To Know Life, One Must Love Many Things.
Knows
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.
Art
Moving
People
Painting It Was Hard Graft. There Are One And A Half Large Tubes Of White In The Ground - Yet That Ground Is Very Dark.
Dark
White
Half
Whatever Plan One Makes, There Is A Hidden Difficulty Somewhere.
Work
Difficulty
Plans
The Great Artist Is The Simplifier.
Writing
Artist
Great Art
If One Truly Loves Nature One Finds Beauty Everywhere.
Love
Beauty
Nature
The Lamps Are Burning And The Starry Sky Is Over It All.
Art
Sky
Lamps
Love Is Something Eternal.
Love Is
Eternal
I Am A Fanatic! I Feel A Power Within Me...a Fire That I May Not Quench, But Must Keep Ablaze.
Fire
May
Quench
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.
Reflection
Reality
Mirrors
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.
Perseverance
Giving
Public Opinion
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.
Music
Drawing
Mind
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.
Distance
Believe
Paris
In The End We Shall Have Had Enough Of Cynicism, Skepticism And Humbug, And We Shall Want To Live More Musically.
Want
Had Enough
Harmony
The Sadness Will Last Forever.
Sad
Sadness
Forever
There Is Peace Even In The Storm
Storm
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.
Heart
Thinking
Light
I Am Painting With The Same Enthusiasm As A Marseillaise Eats Bouillabaisse ... I Am Painting Big Sunflowers.
Sunflower
Enthusiasm
Painting
I Work Even In The Middle Of The Day, In The Full Sunshine, And I Enjoy It Like A Cicada.
Work
Sunshine
Cicadas
Ah, Manet Has Come Very, Very Close To It And Courbet - The Marrying Of Form And Colour.
Form
Masters
Colour
We Spent Our Whole Lives In Unconsous Excercise Of The Art Of Expressing Our Thoughts With The Help Of Words
Art
Helping
Whole Life
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.
Shoes
Gone
Want
Purity Of Soul And Impurity Of Body Can Go Together.
Soul
Together
Body
As Long As Autumn Lasts, I Shall Not Have Hands, Canvas And Colors Enough To Paint The Beautiful Things I See.
Beautiful
Art
Autumn
Paintings Have A Life Of Their Own That Derives From The Painter's Soul.
Artist
Soul
Painting
I Am Working With The Enthusiasm Of A Man From Marseilles Eating Bouillabaisse, Which Shouldn't Come As A Surprise To You Because I Am Busy Painting Huge Sunflowers.
Men
Sunflower
Enthusiasm
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.
Gratitude
Art
Years
The Beginning Is Perhaps More Difficult Than Anything Else, But Keep Heart, It Will Turn Out All Right.
Heart
Difficult
Turns
I Confess I Do Not Know Why, But Looking At The Stars Always Makes Me Dream.
Dream
Stars
Knows
Someday Death Will Take Us To Another Star.
Stars
Someday
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.
Stars
Sunset
Light
I Dream Of Painting And Then I Paint My Dream.
Inspirational
Education
Dream
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 . . . .
Fighting
Men
One Day
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.
Loneliness
Feelings
Mind
A Good Picture Is Equivalent To A Good Deed.
Deeds
Good Deeds
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.
Ideas
Sunflower
Dozen
The Fishermen Know That The Sea Is Dangerous And The Storm Terrible, But They Have Never Found These Dangers Sufficient Reason For Remaining Ashore.
Life
Leadership
Determination
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
Heart
Artist
Order
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