Vincent Van Gogh
Occasionally, in times of worry, I've longed to be stylish, but on second thought I say no-just let me be myself-and express rough, yet true things with rough workmanship.Collection: Worry
But I must work on in full calmness and serenity... The world concerns me only in so far as I feel a certain debt and duty towards it, because I have walked on the earth for thirty years, and out of gratitude want to leave some souvenir in the shape of drawings or pictures, not made to please a certain tendency in art, but to express a sincere human feeling. So this work is the aim-and through concentration upon that one idea, everything one does is simplified. Now the work goes slowly-a reason the more to lose no time.Collection: Gratitude
Conscience is a man's compass, and though the needle sometimes deviates, though one often perceives irregularities in directing one's course by it, still one must try to follow its direction.Collection: Men
There are colors which cause each other to shine brilliantly, which form a couple which complete each other like man and woman.Collection: Couple
To stick to the present and not let it pass without drawing some profit from it, that's what I think duty is. ...let us perservere as far as we can rather today than tomorrow.Collection: Thinking
Suffice it to say that black and white are also colors... for their simultaneous contrast is as striking as that of green and red, for instance.Collection: Black And White
To know life, one must love many things.Collection: Knows
I've never felt a desire (and I don't believe I ever shall) to bring the public to my work... a certain popularity seems to me the least desirable of things.Collection: Believe
I tried to express through red and green the terrible passions of humanity.Collection: Passion
What molting time is to birds, so adversity or misfortune is ... for us humans.Collection: Adversity
What am I in most people's eyes? A nonentity or an eccentric and disagreeable man... I should want my work to show what is in the heart of such an eccentric, of such a nobody.Collection: Heart
As long as autumn lasts, I shall not have hands, canvas and colors enough to paint the beautiful things I see.Collection: Beautiful
Let us keep courage and try to be patient and gentle. And let us not mind being eccentric, and make distinction between good and evil.Collection: Evil
I believe more and more that God must not be judged on this earth. It is one of His sketches that has turned out badly.Collection: Believe
Art is jealous, and demands our whole strength ... .Collection: Art
One can speak poetry just by arranging colors well, just as one can say comforting things in music.Collection: Color
If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it.Collection: Baby
If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow, and great disappointments, and also will probably commit great faults and do wrong things, but it certainly is true, thatit is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to 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 well done.Collection: Life
...and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?Collection: Art
It is no more easy to make a good picture than it is to find a diamond or a pearl. It means trouble and you risk your life for it.Collection: Mean
In trees, I see expression and soulCollection: Expression
In a sense I'm glad that I've never learned how to paint.Collection: Education
Bookstores always remind me that there are good things in this world.Collection: World
Drawing is the root of everything.Collection: Roots
Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me.Collection: Depth
We have very beautiful bad weather here at present - rain, wind, thunder - but with splendid effects; that's why I like it.Collection: Beautiful
No, no thought to the winnings. One loves because one loves.Collection: Winning
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.Collection: Stars
Yellow is capable of charming God.Collection: Color
The more I become decomposed, the more sick and fragile I am, the more I become an artist.Collection: Health
A woman is not old as long as she loves and is lovedCollection: Long
Van Gogh was so under appreciated in his time, he sold only one of his 900 paintings while alive. Posthumously, he became one of the most famous artists of all time and his work is now considered priceless. Oh the irony.Collection: Artist
I feel such a creative force in me: I am convinced that there will be a time when, let us say, I will make something good every day , on a regular basis....I am doing my very best to make every effort because I am longing so much to make beautiful things. But beautiful things mean painstaking work, disappointment, and perseverance.Collection: Beautiful
If you study Japanese art you see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time how? In studying the distance between the earth and the moon? No. In studying the policy of Bismarck? No. He studies a single blade of grass. But this blade of grass leads him to draw every plant and then the seasons, the wide aspects of the countryside, then animals, then the human figure. So he passes his life, and life is too short to do the whole.Collection: Wise
I use color in a completely arbitrary way in order to express myself powerfully.Collection: Order
Describing Starry Night: Firmament and planets both disappeared, but the mighty breath which gives life to all things and in which all is bound up remained.Collection: Life
There is no such thing as an ugly woman.Collection: Funny
Rembrandt is so deeply mysterious that he says things for which there are no words in any language.Collection: Mysterious
I must continue to follow the path I take now. If I do nothing, if I study nothing, if I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it - keep going, keep going come what may.Collection: Woe Is Me
Art demands constant observation.Collection: Art
It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning.Collection: Time
Do not think too deeply about these things - gradually they will become clearer to youCollection: Inspirational
Love is eternal, the aspect may change, but not the essence.Collection: Love
But by fighting the difficulties in which one finds oneself, an inner strength develops from within our heart, which improves in life's fight.Collection: Heart
We spent our whole lives in unconsous excercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of wordsCollection: Art
Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney and then go on their way.Collection: Heart
Whatever plan one makes, there is a hidden difficulty somewhere.Collection: Work
In an artist's life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.Collection: Artist
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.Collection: Music