Authors:

Vincent Van Gogh Quotes - Page 4

All Quotes Art Autumn Canvas Caring Character Choices Creativity Darkness Determination Difficulty Disappointment Earth Eating Education Effort Energy Enthusiasm Evil Falling In Love Feelings Fighting Giving God Gratitude Harmony Heart Humanity Imagination Impulse Inspiration Inspirational Language Life Loneliness Love Lying Making Mistakes Memories Morning Motivational Nature Painting Passion Perseverance Purpose Rain Reality Regret Sadness Sorrow Soul Study Suffering Summer Time True Love Understanding Victory Wall Winter Work Writing
I want to paint what I feel, and feel what I paint.

I want to paint what I feel, and feel what I paint.

Vincent Van Gogh
Want, Paint, Feels

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.

Vincent Van Gogh
Real, Broken, Passionate
Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.2333, Delphi Classics

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.

Vincent Van Gogh
Loneliness, Believe, Sadness

The sadness will last forever.

Vincent Van Gogh
Sad, Sadness, Forever
Vincent van Gogh, Victoria Charles (2014). “Vincent van Gogh”, p.450, Parkstone International

Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more.

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

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.

Vincent Van Gogh
Brother, Caring, Magic
Vincent van Gogh, Victoria Charles (2014). “Vincent van Gogh”, p.144, Parkstone International

It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent.

Vincent Van Gogh
Mistake, Artist, Prudent
Vincent van Gogh, Mark Roskill (1997). “The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh”, p.110, Simon and Schuster

As practice makes perfect, I cannot but make progress; each drawing one makes, each study one paints, is a step forward.

Vincent Van Gogh
Art, Practice, Drawing
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 ...”

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.

Vincent Van Gogh
Distance, Believe, Paris

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul, and yet no one ever comes to sit by it.

Vincent Van Gogh
Sad, Lonely, Loneliness
Letter to Theo van Gogh from Cuesmes, www.vangoghletters.org. June 22-24, 1880.

As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.

Vincent Van Gogh
Strength, Meaningful, Heart
Letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, on May 30, 1877. "Dear Theo: the Autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh" by Irving Stone and Jean Stone, p. 26, 1995.

In an artist's life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.

Vincent Van Gogh
Artist, Life Death, Difficult

We are surrounded by poetry on all sides.

Vincent Van Gogh
Sides
Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.1893, Delphi Classics

I am no friend of present-day Christianity, though its Founder was sublime.

Vincent Van Gogh
Sublime, No Friends, Christianity
Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.2331, Delphi Classics

The diseases that we civilized people labor under most are melancholy and pessimism.

Vincent Van Gogh
People, Disease, Pessimism

A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.

Vincent Van Gogh
Deeds, Good Deeds
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.41, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press

Great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed.

Vincent Van Gogh
Great Things

In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism, skepticism and humbug, and we shall want to live more musically.

Vincent Van Gogh
Want, Had Enough, Harmony
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.35, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press

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.

Vincent Van Gogh
Stars, Sunset, Light
Letter to brother Theo, from Arles, September 1888.

Rembrandt is so deeply mysterious that he says things for which there are no words in any language.

Vincent Van Gogh
Mysterious, Language
Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.2495, Delphi Classics

Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me.

Vincent Van Gogh
Depth, Misery, Harmony
Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.1631, Delphi Classics

Only when I fall do I get up again.

Vincent Van Gogh
Fall, Making Mistakes, Get Up
Vincent van Gogh, Anthon Gerhard Alexander Rappard (ridder van), Anthon van Rappard (1936). “Letters to an artist: from Vincent van Gogh to Anton ridder van Rappard, 1881-1885”

I am a fanatic! I feel a power within me...a fire that I may not quench, but must keep ablaze.

Vincent Van Gogh
Fire, May, Quench

You have first to experience what you want to express.

Vincent Van Gogh
Motivational, Want, Firsts

Admire as much as you can. Most people do not admire enough.

Vincent Van Gogh
People, Enough, Admire
Vincent van Gogh, Victoria Charles (2014). “Vincent van Gogh”, p.36, Parkstone International

You May Also Like: