Vincent Van Gogh Quotes
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I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
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In an artist's life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.
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Love is something eternal.
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I always think photographs abominable, and I don't like to have them around, particularly not those of persons I know and love. Those photographic portraits wither much sooner than we ourselves do, whereas the painted portrait is a thing which is felt, done with love.
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Everyone who works with love and with intelligence finds in the very sincerity of his love for nature and art a kind of armor against the opinions of other people.
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Painting is a faith and that it brings with it the duty to pay no heed to public opinion - and that in it one conquers by perseverance and not by giving in.
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I will not live without love.
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A weaver who has to direct and to interweave a great many little threads has no time to philosophize about it, but rather he is so absorbed in his work that he doesn't think but acts, and he feels how things must go more than he can explain it.
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What a splendid thing watercolour is to express atmosphere and distance, so that the figure is surrounded by air and can breathe in it.
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I am risking my life for my work, and half my reason has gone.
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But on the road that I'm on I must continue; if I do nothing, if I don't study, if I don't keep on trying, then I'm lost, then woe betide me. That's how I see this, to keep on, keep on, that's what's needed.
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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. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle.
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To exaggerate the fairness of hair, I come even to orange tones, chromes and pale yellow ... I make a plain background of the richest, intensest blue that I can contrive, and by this simple combination of the bright head against the rich blue background, I get a mysterious effect, like a star in the depths of an azure sky.
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The sight of stars makes me dream.
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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?
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Love a friend, love a wife, something, whatever you like, but one must love with a lofty and serious intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence, and one must always try to know deeper, better, and more.
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The worse I get along with people the more I learn to have faith in Nature and concentrate on her.
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Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and continuous observations. By persistent, I mean not only continuous work, but also not giving up your opinion at the bidding of such and such a person.
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I do not intend to spare myself, not to avoid emotions or difficulties. I don't care much whether I live a longer or shorter time... the world concerns me only in so far as I feel a certain debt toward it, because I have walked on this earth for thirty years, and out of gratitude I want to leave some souvenir.
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One of the reasons why I have no regular job, and why I have not had a regular job for years, is quite simply that my ideas differ from those of the gentlemen who hand out the jobs to individuals who think as they do. It is not just a question of my appearance, which is what they have sanctimoniously reproached me with. It goes deeper, I do assure you.
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Great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed.
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Do not think too deeply about these things - gradually they will become clearer to you
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I assure you that there's a lot involved in compositions with figures. ... It's like weaving... you must control and keep an eye on several things at once.
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The sadness will last forever.