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Vincent Van Gogh Quotes - Page 11

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What color is in a picture, enthusiasm is in life.

What color is in a picture, enthusiasm is in life.

Vincent Van Gogh
Color, Enthusiasm
Naomi E. Maurer, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin (1998). “The Pursuit of Spiritual Wisdom: The Thought and Art of Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin”, p.54, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press

For the great doesn't happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together.

Vincent Van Gogh
Together, Littles, Little Things

To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, who with irresistible force urges us towards more loving.

Vincent Van Gogh
Believe, Belief, Force
Vincent van Gogh, Vincent Willem Gogh (1927). “The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh to His Brother, 1872-1886: With a Memoir by His Sister-in-law, J. Van Gogh-Bonger ...”

The uglier, older, meaner, iller, poorer I get, the more I wish to take my revenge by doing brilliant color, well arranged, resplendent.

Vincent Van Gogh
Revenge, Color, Wish

The great isn't something accidental; it must be willed.

Vincent Van Gogh

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.

Vincent Van Gogh
Color, Lines, Equator
Vincent van Gogh (1988). “Van Gogh: A Retrospective”, Park Lane Enterprises

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.

Vincent Van Gogh
Eye, White, Boards
Vincent van Gogh (1971). “Van Gogh's "diary"; the artist's life in his own words and art”

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.

Vincent Van Gogh
Mad, Mind, Normal
Vincent van Gogh (1971). “Van Gogh's "diary"; the artist's life in his own words and art”

Often whole days pass without my speaking to anyone.

Vincent Van Gogh
Being Alone, Creativity, Whole
Vincent van Gogh, Ronald Pickvance (1984). “Van Gogh in Arles”, p.71, Metropolitan Museum of Art

As a painter I shall never signify anything of importance. I feel it Absolutely.

Vincent Van Gogh
Painting, Importance, Painter
H. R. Graetz, Vincent van Gogh (1963). “The Symbolic Language of Vincent Van Gogh”, London, Hudson

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.

Vincent Van Gogh
Wall, Believe, Heart

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.'

Vincent Van Gogh
Broken, Passionate, Canvas

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.

Vincent Van Gogh
Air, Paris, Brain
Naomi E. Maurer, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin (1998). “The Pursuit of Spiritual Wisdom: The Thought and Art of Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin”, p.53, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press

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!

Vincent Van Gogh
Art, Yellow, Light
Vincent van Gogh (1959). “Complete Letters: With Reproductions of All the Drawings in the Correspondence”

... life is too short to do the whole.

Vincent Van Gogh
Time, Life Is Too Short, Japanese Art
Vincent van Gogh, Mark Roskill (1997). “The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh”, p.295, Simon and Schuster

Since visiting the abatoirs of S. France I have stopped eating meat.

Vincent Van Gogh
Meat, France, Eating

I myself am quite absorbed by the delicate yellow, delicate soft green, delicate violet of a ploughed and weeded piece of soil.

Vincent Van Gogh
Nature, Yellow, Pieces
Vincent van Gogh (1929). “Further Letters of Vincent Van Gogh to His Brother, 1886-1889”

One must spoil as many canvases as one succeeds with.

Vincent Van Gogh
Succeed, Spoil

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.

Vincent Van Gogh
Men, Forever, Energy
Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.2333, Delphi Classics

The victory one would gain after a whole life of work and effort is better than one that is gained sooner.

Vincent Van Gogh
Effort, Victory, Gains
Vincent van Gogh, Mark Roskill (1997). “The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh”, p.109, Simon and Schuster

Ah! Portraiture, portraiture with the thought, the soul of the model in it, that is what I think must come.

Vincent Van Gogh
Thinking, Soul, Portraiture
Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.2878, Delphi Classics

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.

Vincent Van Gogh
Trying, Ugly, Ill

...to look at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots of a map representing towns and villages. Why, I ask myself, should the shining dots of the sky not be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France?

Vincent Van Gogh
Dream, Stars, Future
Vincent van Gogh, Mark Roskill (1997). “The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh”, p.272, Simon and Schuster

People are often unable to do anything, imprisoned as they are in I don't know what kind of terrible, terrible, oh such terrible cage.

Vincent Van Gogh
People, Cages, Kind
Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.1336, Delphi Classics

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.

Vincent Van Gogh
Loneliness, Feelings, Mind
Vincent van Gogh, Martin Bailey (1990). “Van Gogh, letters from Provence”, Clarkson N Potter Publishers

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