102
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history.
In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art.
Not commercially successful in his career, he struggled with severe depression and poverty, which eventually led to his suicide at age thirty-seven.
List of quotes
| 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. |
| It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. |
| Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it. |
| Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul. |
| Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy. |
| The best way to know God is to love many things. |
| In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing. |
| The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. |
| There is no blue without yellow and without orange. |
| The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic that to love others. |
| There may be a great fire in our hearts, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke. |
| Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous. |
| What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? |
| 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. |
| One must work and dare if one really wants to live. |
| Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion. |
| When I have a terrible need of – shall I say the word – religion. Then I go out and paint the stars. |
| 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. |
| I dream of painting and then I paint my dream. |
| A good picture is equivalent to a good deed. |
| I wish they would only take me as I am. |
| If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men? |
| 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 you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. |
| I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners. |
| I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process. |
| I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day. |
| The way to know life is to love many things. |
| I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream. |
| I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create. |
| Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model. |
| How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be? |
| An artist needn’t be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men. |
| Great things are done by a series of small things brought together. |
| For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. |
| Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again. |
| I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed. |
| As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed. |
| I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. |
| Conscience is a man’s compass. |
| But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things. |
