Quotes By Vincent Van Gogh

Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.

How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

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 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.

The best way to know God is to love many things.

Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.

Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter's soul.

The way to know life is to love many things.

I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed.

I wish they would only take me as I am.

One must work and dare if one really wants to live.

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.

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.

Conscience is a man's compass.

I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.

If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?

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.

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.

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

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.

Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.

There is no blue without yellow and without orange.

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.

When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.

The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.

A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.