Vincent van Gogh Quotes

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

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

So what do you want? Does what happens inside show on the outside? There is such a great fire in one’s soul, and yet nobody ever comes to warm themselves there, and passersby see nothing but a little smoke coming from the top of the chimney, and go on their way.

Don't lose heart if it's very difficult at times, everything will come out all right and nobody can in the beginning do as he wishes.

The world concerns me only in so far as I owe it a certain debt and duty, so to speak, because I have walked this earth for 30 years, and out of gratitude would like to leave some memento in the form of drawings and paintings—not made to please this school or that, but to express a genuine human feeling.

Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.

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.

A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke

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, which is my life, the power to create.

One of the most beautiful things to do is to paint darkness, which nevertheless has light in it.

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

There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.

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

Where friendship blooms, life is reborn.

I often think of you all, one cannot do what one wants in life. The more you feel attached to a spot, the more ruthlessly you are compelled to leave it, but the memories remain, and one remembers - as in a looking glass, darkly - one's absent friends.

To suffer without complaint is the only lesson we have to learn in this life

Both she and I have grief enough and trouble enough, but as for regrets – neither of us have any.

I dream my painting and I paint my dream.

It's as interesting and as difficult to say a thing well as to paint it. There is the art of lines and colours but the art of words exists too and will never be less important.

Love is eternal -- the aspect may change, but not the essence. There is the same difference in a person before and after he is in love as there is in an unlighted lamp and one that is burning. The lamp was there and was a good lamp, but now it is shedding light too, and that is its real function. And love makes one calmer about many things, and that way, one is more fit for one's work.

I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime.

There is safety in the very heart of danger.

One of the most difficult things to do is to paint darkness which nonetheless has light in it.

I confess I do not know why, but looking at the stars always makes me dream.

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

Well, what shall I say; our inward thoughts, do they ever show outwardly? There may be a great fire in our soul, but no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a little bit of smoke coming through the chimney, and pass on their way.

There may be a great fire in our soul, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke.

...and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?

I hope to depart in no other way than looking back with love and wistfulness and thinking, oh paintings that I would have made..

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

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

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

What I am 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 like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart.

There are often beams in our eye that we know not of. Let us therefore ask that our eye may become single, for then we ourselves shall become wholly single.

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.

I dream my painting and then I paint my dream.

A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.

I am seeking I am striving I am in it with all my heart.

..it has always been so much my desire to paint for those who don’t know the artistic side of a painting.

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

We feel lonely now and then and long for friends and think we should be quite different and happier if we found a friend of whom we might say: “He is the one.” But you, too, will begin to learn that there is much self-deception behind this longing; if we yielded too much to it, it would lead us from the road.

Let me stop there, but my God, how beautiful Shakespeare is, who else is as mysterious as he is; his language and method are like a brush trembling with excitement and ecstasy. But one must learn to read, just as one must learn to see and learn to live.

Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.

The sadness will last forever.

It's better to have a gay life of it than to commit suicide.

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.

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

And the memories of all we have loved stay and come back to us in the evening of our life. They are not dead but sleep, and it is well to gather a treasure of them.

Still there is a calm pure harmony and music inside of me.

Whoever loves much, performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.

La tristesse durera toujours.]

But are not this struggle and even the mistakes one may make better and do they not develop us more than if we kept systematically away from emotions?

I feel the need of relations and friendship of affection of friendly intercourse. ... I cannot miss these things without feeling as does any other intelligent man a void and a deep need.

I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do 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.

There is a great difference between one idler and another idler. There is someone who is an idler out of laziness and lack of character, owing to the baseness of his nature. If you like, you may take me for one of those. Then there is the other kind of idler, the idler despite himself, who is inwardly consumed by a great longing for action who does nothing because his hands are tied, because he is, so to speak, imprisoned somewhere, because he lacks what he needs to be productive, because disastrous circumstances have brought him forcibly to this end. Such a one does not always know what he can do, but he nevertheless instinctively feels, I am good for something! My existence is not without reason! I know that I could be a quite a different person! How can I be of use, how can I be of service? There is something inside me, but what can it be? He is quite another idler. If you like you may take me for one of those.

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.

Seek only light and freedom and do not immerse yourself too deeply in the worldly mire.

It is only right and proper to be moved by the Bible, but present-day reality has so strong a hold over us that even when we try to imagine the past the minor events in our lives immediately wrench us out of our musings, and our own adventures throw us back irrevocably upon our personal feelings—joy, boredom, suffering, anger, or a smile.

Those who love much, do much and accomplish much, and whatever is done with love is done well.... Love is the best and noblest thing in the human heart, especially when it is tested by life as gold is tested by fire. Happy is he who has loved much, and although he may have wavered and doubted, he has kept that divine spark alive and returned to what was in the beginning and ever shall be. If only one keeps loving faithfully what is truly worth loving and does not squander one's love on trivial and insignificant and meaningless things then one will gradually obtain more light and grow stronger.