A biography for Vincent Van Goghhasn’t been written yet.
“I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.”
“The way to know life is to love many things.”
“Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.”
“As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.”
“Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.”
“I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.”
“I wish they would only take me as I am.”
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”
“There is no blue without yellow and without orange.”
“Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.”
“If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?”
“I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.”
“How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?”
“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.”
“An artist needn't be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.”
“One must work and dare if one really wants to live.”
“Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.”
“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”
“A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.”
“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 am, which is my life, the power to create.”