Top 425 Quotes & Sayings by Vincent Van Gogh

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh.
Last updated on November 25, 2024.
Vincent Van Gogh

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. He was not commercially successful and, struggling with severe depression and poverty, committed suicide at the age of 37.

An artist needn't be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.
As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.
If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. — © Vincent Van Gogh
If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.
Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.
The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.
A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.
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.
The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.
Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.
What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?
I wish they would only take me as I am.
Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous. — © Vincent Van Gogh
Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.
If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?
I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
The best way to know God is to love many things.
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.
I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed.
How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?
The way to know life 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.
Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter's soul.
I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.
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.
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 see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.
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.
Conscience is a man's compass.
One must work and dare if one really wants to live.
But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.
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.
Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.
There is no blue without yellow and without orange.
When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.
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.
I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.
Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion. — © Vincent Van Gogh
Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.
It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent.
I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.
Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.
I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove.
Great things do not just happen by impulse, but as a succession of small things linked together.
Find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful.
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
Everywhere we look, complex magic of nature blazes before our eyes.
Color in a picture is like enthusiasm in life.
One must never let the fire go out in one's soul, but keep it burning. — © Vincent Van Gogh
One must never let the fire go out in one's soul, but keep it burning.
Your profession is not what brings home your weekly paycheck, your profession is what you're put here on earth to do, with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling.
Doing little things well is a step toward doing big things better.
Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk,? but no flowers grow on it.
Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, 'What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.' Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.
Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague.
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.
Art is to console those who are broken by life.
If one truly loves nature one finds beauty everywhere.
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.
I confess I do not know why, but looking at the stars always makes me dream.
I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.
I am always doing what I can't do yet in order to learn how to do it.
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