Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who was not commercially successful during his life, but became one of the most famous figures in Western art history after his death.
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| I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process. ― Vincent Van Gogh |
These quotes speak to Van Gogh's passion for art, his love of nature, and his deep understanding of the human condition. They are a reminder that we should never give up on our dreams, no matter how difficult they may seem.
And his quotes offer a glimpse into his unique and creative mind. His words continue to inspire and motivate people around the world, and they remind us of the power of art to transform lives.
Here is a collection of Vincent Van Gogh most famous quotes: Vincent Van Gogh quotes about life, art, nature, beauty, painting, stars, dreams, poetry, books and work. Quotes and sayings on passion, soul, heart, love, friendship, friends and loving by Van Gogh.
Vincent Van Gogh Quotes and Sayings
Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all.
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.
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 nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
I dream my painting and I paint my dream.
Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.
A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke.
And then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?
Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.
If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
I don't know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream.
If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things.
I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
Normality is a paved road: It's comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.
How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?
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| I dream my painting and I paint my dream. ― Vincent Van Gogh |
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.
I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process.
It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent.
What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?
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.
If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?
Art is to console those who are broken by life.
The sadness will last forever.
Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.
I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.
If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning.
An artist needn't be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.
Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.
If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.
There is no blue without yellow and without orange.
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| Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. ― Vincent Van Gogh |
I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove.
The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.
Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter's soul.
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.
I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say 'he feels deeply, he feels tenderly'.
The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.
It is with the reading of books the same as with looking at pictures; one must, without doubt, without hesitations, with assurance, admire what is beautiful.
I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it.
Conscience is a man's compass.
It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning.
I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.
A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.
There is peace even in the storm.
The beginning is perhaps more difficult than anything else, but keep heart, it will turn out all right.
It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality is more important than the feeling for pictures.
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| There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. ― Vincent Van Gogh |
Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague.
So often, a visit to a bookshop has cheered me, and reminded me that there are good things in the world.
Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.
I wish they would only take me as I am.
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.
Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.
Someday death will take us to another star.
To suffer without complaint is the only lesson we have to learn in this life.
I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.
Admire as much as you can. Most people do not admire enough.
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.
The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting.
The sunflower is mine, in a way.
I can't change the fact that my paintings don't sell. But the time will come when people will recognize that they are worth more than the value of the paints used in the picture.
Your profession is not what brings home your weekly paycheck, your profession is what you're put here on earth to do, with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling.
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| If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. ― Vincent Van Gogh |
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.
In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism, skepticism and humbug, and we shall want to live more musically.
I will not live without love.
In spite of everything, I shall rise again; I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.
Only when I fall do I get up again.
Whoever loves much, performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.
When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion, then I go out and paint the stars.
I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed.
One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.
It is a pity that, as one gradually gains experience, one loses one's youth.
I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.
I confess I do not know why, but looking at the stars always makes me dream.
And when I read, and really I do not read so much, only a few authors, - a few men that I discovered by accident - I do this because they look at things in a broader, milder and more affectionate way than I do, and because they know life better, so that I can learn from them.
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.
But for one's health as you say, it is very necessary to work in the garden and see the flowers growing.
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| What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? ― Vincent Van Gogh |
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.
What is done in love is done well.
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.
We are surrounded by poetry on all sides.
If you work with love and intelligence, you develop a kind of armour against people's opinions, just because of the sincerity of your love for nature and art. Nature is also severe and, to put it that way, hard, but never deceives and always helps you to move forward.
Let's not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it.
What preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way?
How right it is to love flowers and the greenery of pines and ivy and hawthorn hedges; they have been with us from the very beginning.
What color is in a picture, enthusiasm is in life.
The best way to know life is to love many things.
I think that I still have it in my heart someday to paint a bookshop with the front yellow and pink in the evening.... like a light in the midst of the darkness.
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.
Success is sometimes the outcome of a whole string of failures.
Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more.
Seek only light and freedom and do not immerse yourself too deeply in the worldly mire.
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| One must work and dare if one really wants to live. ― Vincent Van Gogh |
Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.
I take great care of myself by carefully shutting myself away.
Bookstores always remind me that there are good things in this world.
How rich art is, if one can only remember what one has seen, one is never empty of thoughts or truly lonely, never alone.
To do good work one must eat well, be well housed, have one's fling from time to time, smoke one's pipe, and drink one's coffee in peace.
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.
One must work and dare if one really wants to live.
Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me.
I long so much to make beautiful things. But beautiful things require effort and disappointment and perseverance.
The lamps are burning and the starry sky is over it all.
I shouldn't precisely have chosen madness if there had been any choice, but once such a thing has taken hold of you, you can't very well get out of it.
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.
Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the painter who dares and who has broken the spell of 'you can't' once and for all.
It's better to have a gay life of it than to commit suicide.
One of the most beautiful things to do is to paint darkness, which nevertheless has light in it.
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| I don't know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream. ― Vincent Van Gogh |
The more ugly, old, nasty, ill, and poor I become the more I want to get my own back by producing vibrant, well-arranged, radiant colour.
I work as diligently on my canvases as the laborers do in their fields.
The victory one would gain after a whole life of work and effort is better than one that is gained sooner.
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.
We spent our whole lives in unconscious exercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of words.
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.
As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.
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.
The more you love, the more you suffer.
Love is something eternal.... The aspect may change but not the essence.
My great longing is to learn to make those very incorrectnesses, those deviations, remodellings, changes of reality, so that they may become, yes, untruth if you like - but more true than the literal truth.
Illusions may fade, but the sublime remains.
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.
A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.
What would be of life if we didn't have the courage of doing something new?
To understand blue you must first understand yellow and orange.
I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.
I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
An artist needn't be a clergyman or a church warden, but he must have a warm heart for his fellow men.
I hope to depart in no other way than looking back with love and wistfulness and thinking, oh paintings that I would have made.
It is not only by one's impulses that one achieves greatness, but also by patiently filing away the steel wall that separates what one feels from what one is capable of doing.
There is nothing more beautiful than nature early in the morning.
I want to paint humanity, humanity and again humanity.
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.
The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
One must seize the reality of one's fate and that's that.
So don't study and swot too much, for that makes one sterile. Enjoy yourself too much rather than too little, and don't take art or love too seriously- there is very little one can do about it
That I was not suited to commerce or academic study in no way proves that I should also be unfit to be a painter.
I thought I would be understood without words.
I'll start with the small things.
Drawing is the root of everything!
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.
The earth from afar shines like a star.
I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed.
But you must love with a high, serious intimate sympathy, with a will, with intelligence, and you must always seek to know more thoroughly, better, and more.
Love is the best and the noblest thing in the human heart, especially when it is tested by life as gold is tested by fire.
Admire as much as you can, most people don't admire enough.
Love always causes trouble, that's true, but in its favour, it energizes.
But when shallI ever get round to doing the starry sky, that picture which is always on my mind?
In the fullness of artistic life there is, and remains, and will always come back at times, that homesick longing for the truly ideal life that can never come true.
I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime.
For me, life may well continue in solitude. I have never perceived those to whom I have been most attached other than as through a glass, darkly.
I am so angry with myself because I cannot do what I should like to do, and at such a moment one feels as if one were lying bound hand and foot at the bottom of a deep dark well, utterly helpless.
I would sooner paint people's eyes than cathedrals, for there is something in the eyes that is lacking in a cathedral - however solemn and impressive it may be. To my mind a man's soul, be it that of a poor beggar or of a streetwalker, is more interesting.
Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.
If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?
I, for my part, am always glad that I have read the Bible more carefully than many people do nowadays, just because it gives me some peace of mind to know that there used to be such lofty ideals.
And meanwhile I am in my own hide, and my hide within the cog-wheels of the Fine Arts, like corn between the millstones.
It's true I'm sitting here lonely, but whilst I am sitting here in silence, my work perhaps speaks to my friend, and whoever sees it will not suspect me of being heartless.
Lord, keep my thoughts green! That is something one should say over and over again.
I knew well enough that one could fracture one's legs and arms and recover afterward, but I did not know that you could fracture the brain in your head and recover from that too.
You can feel the stars and the infinity of the sky. Since life, in spite of everything, is like a fairytale.
Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.
In order to work and to become an artist one needs love. At least, one who wants sentiment in his work must in the first place feel it himself, and live with his heart.
You can live to be old or young, but you'll always have moments when you lose your head.
At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to me that night is still more richly coloured than the day; having hues of the most intense violets, blues and greens. If only you pay attention to it you will see that certain stars are lemon-yellow, others pink or a green, blue and forget-me-not brilliance. And without my expatiating on this theme it is obvious that putting little white dots on the blue-black is not enough to paint a starry sky.
There are idlers and idlers, who form a contrast.
One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.
You may know that the peony is Jeannin's, the hollyhock belongs to Quost, but the sunflower is mine in a way.
In an artist's life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.
Great things are not something accidental, they must be distinctly willed.
I would rather die of passion than of boredom.