Vincent Van Gogh
A good painting should be the equivalent of a good deed.Collection: Deeds
For loneliness, worries, difficulties, the unsatisfied need for kindness and sympathy - that is what is hard to bear.Collection: Kindness
Study, analyse the social structure - that's always far more effective than moralising.Collection: Morality
I don't know if I can convey the postman as I feel him... Unfortunately he cannot pose, and a painting demands an intelligent model.Collection: Intelligent
My aim in life is to make pictures and drawings, as many and as well as I can; then, at the end of my life... looking back with love and tender regret, and thinking, 'Oh, the pictures I might have made!'Collection: Regret
One begins by plaguing oneself to no purpose in order to be true to nature, and one concludes by working quietly from one's own palette alone, and then nature is the result.Collection: Order
The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerises some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves.Collection: Canvas
I am working with the enthusiasm of a man from Marseilles eating bouillabaisse, which shouldn't come as a surprise to you because I am busy painting huge sunflowers.Collection: Men
Well, I dare not allow myself any illusions, and I am afraid it may never happen that Father and Mother will really appreciate my art. It is not their fault; we do not see the same things with the same eyes, or have the same thoughts raised in us by them. They will never be able to understand what painting is.Collection: Mother
We must not judge God from this world. It's just a study that didn't come off. It's only a master who could make such a blunder.Collection: Judging
There is no blue without yellow and without orange, and if you put in blue, then you must put in yellow, and orange too, mustn't you? Oh well, you will tell me that what I write to you are only banalities.Collection: Writing
It may be true that there is no God here, but there must be one not far off, and at such a moment one feels His presence; which comes to the same as saying (and I readily give this sincere profession of faith): I believe in God, and that it is His wiCollection: Believe
Painting it was hard graft... in addition red, yellow, brown ochre, black, terra sienna, bistre, and the result is a red-brown that varies from bistre to deep wine-red and to pale, blond reddish.Collection: Wine
I believe that one thinks much more soundly if the thoughts arise from direct contact with things, than if one looks at things with the aim of finding this or that in them.Collection: Believe
If one were to say but few words, though ones with meaning, one would do better than to say many that were only empty sounds, and just as easy to utter as they were of little use.Collection: Sound
The cure for him would be to take a good long look at some potato plants, which have lately had such a deep and distinctive colour and tone, instead of driving himself mad looking at pieces of yellow satin and gold leather.Collection: Yellow
If one has such an encounter it is to be expected it will bring him into conflict, especially conflict with himself, because one sometimes literally does not know what to do or what not to do. But is this struggle and even the mistakes one may make, not better, and do they not develop us more than if we keep systematically away from emotions?Collection: Mistake
I always dream a painting like that, with a group of lively figures of the pals.Collection: Dream
Seeing that I am so busily occupied with myself just now, I want to try to paint my self-portrait in writing.Collection: Writing
Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul.Collection: Artist