Vincent Van Gogh Quotes
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Do not become the slave of your model.
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Still, there is a calm, pure harmony, and music inside of me.
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Well, do you know what I hope for, once I allow myself to begin to hope? [...] That you find in your love for people something not only to work for, but to comfort and restore you when there is a need.
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And in a picture I want to say something comforting, as music is comforting.
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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.
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Nature always begins by resisting the artist, but he who really takes it seriously does not allow that resistance to put him off his stride; on the contrary, it is that much more of a stimulus to fight for victory.
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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.
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I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
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To know life, one must love many things.
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I want to do drawings which touch some people... In either figure or landscape I wish to express, not sentimental melancholy, but serious sorrow.
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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.
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It is true that every day has its own evil, and its good too. But how difficult must life be, especially farther on when the evil of each day increases as far as worldly things go, if it is not strengthened and comforted by faith. And in Christ all worldly things may become better, and, as it were, sanctified. Theo, woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel; if I did not aim at that and possess faith and hope in Christ, it would be bad for me indeed, but no I have some courage.
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One must work and dare if one really wants to live.
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Color in a picture is like enthusiasm in life.
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Often whole days pass without my speaking to anyone, except to ask for diner or coffee. And it has been like that form the beginning.
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There is no such thing as an ugly woman.
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My brushwork is quite unsystematic. I slam the paint on in all sorts of ways and leave each result to take care of itself.
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Only when I fall do I get up again.
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My opinion is that the best thing would be to work on till art lovers feel drawn toward it of their own accord, instead of having to praise or to explain it.
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I am unable to describe exactly what is the matter with me; now and then there are horrible fits of anxiety, apparently without cause, or otherwise a feeling of emptiness and fatigue in the head.
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In general, and most especially with artists, I pay as much attention to the man who does the work, as to the work itself.
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One must never let the fire go out in one's soul, but keep it burning.
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Accurate drawing, accurate colour, is perhaps not the essential thing to aim at, because the reflection of reality in a mirror, if it could be caught, colour and all, would not be a picture at all, no more than a photograph.
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Since visiting the abatoirs of S. France I have stopped eating meat.