Vincent Van Gogh Quotes

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.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

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

~ Vincent Van Gogh

There is peace even in the storm

~ Vincent Van Gogh

Art is to console those who are broken by life.

~ 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.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

One must work and dare if one really wants to live.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

Seek only light and freedom and do not immerse yourself too deeply in the worldly mire.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me want to dream.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

Well, right now it seems that things are going very badly for me, have been doing so for some considerable time, and may continue to do so well into the future. But it is possible that everything will get better after it has all seemed to go wrong. I am not counting on it, it may never happen, but if there should be a change for the better I should regard that as a gain, I should rejoice, I should say, at last! So there was something after all!

~ Vincent Van Gogh

...and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?

~ Vincent Van Gogh

I dream my painting and I paint my dream.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

To suffer without complaint is the only lesson we have to learn in this life

~ Vincent Van Gogh

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.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

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.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

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.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

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.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

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.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

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.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

I hope to depart in no other way than looking back with love and wistfulness and thinking, oh paintings that I would have made..

~ Vincent Van Gogh

What is drawing? How does one learn it? It is working through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

One of the most beautiful things to do is to paint darkness, which nevertheless has light in it.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

The world concerns me only in so far as I owe it a certain debt and duty, so to speak, because I have walked this earth for 30 years, and out of gratitude would like to leave some memento in the form of drawings and paintings—not made to please this school or that, but to express a genuine human feeling.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

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.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

~ Vincent Van Gogh

A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke

~ Vincent Van Gogh

It is only right and proper to be moved by the Bible, but present-day reality has so strong a hold over us that even when we try to imagine the past the minor events in our lives immediately wrench us out of our musings, and our own adventures throw us back irrevocably upon our personal feelings—joy, boredom, suffering, anger, or a smile.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

Those who love much, do much and accomplish much, and whatever is done with love is done well.... Love is the best and noblest thing in the human heart, especially when it is tested by life as gold is tested by fire. Happy is he who has loved much, and although he may have wavered and doubted, he has kept that divine spark alive and returned to what was in the beginning and ever shall be. If only one keeps loving faithfully what is truly worth loving and does not squander one's love on trivial and insignificant and meaningless things then one will gradually obtain more light and grow stronger.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I, which is my life, the power to create.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

Both she and I have grief enough and trouble enough, but as for regrets – neither of us have any.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

I often think of you all, one cannot do what one wants in life. The more you feel attached to a spot, the more ruthlessly you are compelled to leave it, but the memories remain, and one remembers - as in a looking glass, darkly - one's absent friends.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

The sadness will last forever.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

Well, what shall I say; our inward thoughts, do they ever show outwardly? There may be a great fire in our soul, but no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a little bit of smoke coming through the chimney, and pass on their way.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

There are often beams in our eye that we know not of. Let us therefore ask that our eye may become single, for then we ourselves shall become wholly single.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

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.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

What I am 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 like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart.

~ Vincent Van Gogh