Quotes from Vincent Van Gogh

If I can manage to paint the coloring of my own head, which is not to be done without some difficulty, I shall likewise be able to paint the heads of other good souls

And yet, my dear sister, to what an extent doctors, engineers, in short lots of people, have more practical, stabler ideas than artists! As for me, I often think with a deep sigh that I ought to have been better than I am. Let me stop talking of it at once, or else it might discourage me. Well, the fact is that one cannot retrace one's steps, and the steps one has taken greatly influence the future.

You see I am not stronger than other people in that if I neglected myself too much, it would be the same with me as with so many painters (so very many if one thinks it over), I should drop dead, or worse still - become insane or an idiot.

And one would almost conclude that some people have cauterized certain sensitive nerves within themselves - especially those which, combined, are called conscience. Well, I pity them - in my opinion they travel through life without a compass. One might suppose that the love for humanity which is the foundation of everything should be in every human being.

Indeed, illness or death holds no terror for me, but happily for us, ambition is not compatible with the callings we follow. There are so many people in all classes of society, from the highest to the lowest, who believe that, anyway.

And let me just say this: I think as much of brotherly integrity when it comes to Boussod's money as you do. It has never played us false. And we have sweated far too much doing good work to get annoyed at being called thieves or incompetents.

What is done in love, is well done

And this will remain my policy, and it is quite possible that I shall give up my studio before long and go live in a peasant's cottage, so as not to hear or see educated people - as they call themselves - any longer.

This evening when the setting sun was reflected in the water and in the windows and cast a bright golden glow over everything, it looked just like a picture by Cuyp.

In my picture of the "Night Café" I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime. So I have tried to express, as it were, the powers of darkness in a low public house

As to the one by Roll, I myself was once present at such a scene, complete in every detail, and I think the beauty of his picture is that it expresses such a situation so accurately, though one finds but very few of the details in it. I thought of a saying by Corot, "Il y a des tableaux où il n'y a rien et pourtant tout y est." [There are pictures in which there is nothing and yet everything is in them.]

But what would Monsieur Tersteeg say about this picture when he said before a Sisley - Sisley, the most discreet and gentle of the impressionists - "I can't help thinking that the artist who painted that was a little tipsy." If he saw my picture, he would say that it was delirium tremens in full swing.

To tell you the truth, I couldn't spare either the old- or the new-fashioned manner. Too many beautiful things have been done too unusually well for me to prefer one to the other systematically. And the changes which the moderns have made in art are not always for the better; not everything means progress - neither in the works nor in the artists themselves - and often it seems to me that many lose sight of the origin and the goal, or in other words, they do not stick to the point.

Theo, do not become materialistic like Tersteeg. The problem is, Theo, my brother, not to let yourself be bound, no matter by what, especially not by a golden chain.

I am on the point of going to Brussels. Mr. Plugge wrote me about Vincent. He is weak and thin - it seems he was not given any prospects, and I am worried. According to Mr. Plugge's letter, he cannot sleep and seems to be in a nervous condition. Therefore I want to go and see for myself what we should do.

The man of faith, of energy, of warmth… steps in and does something.

Ludilo je spasonosno, jer ?ovek možda postaje manje isklju?iv.

L'arte è l'uomo sommato alla natura.

Ich wäre sehr froh, wenn Du in mir doch etwas anderes sehen könntest als eine Art Nichtstuer.

Science - scientific reasoning - strikes me as being an instru-ment that will go a very long way in the future. For look: people used to think that the earth was flat. That was true, and still is today, of, say, Paris to Asnières. But that does not alter the fact that science demonstrates that the earth as a whole is round, something nobody nowadays disputes. For all that, people still persist in thinking that life is flat and runs from birth to death.

Plus elle disparait plus elle apparait. [The more she disappears the more she appears.]

You are thrifty yourself, you understand what is absolutely needed. And I ask you, can one do what is absolutely necessary with what remains for one's own use after paying for painting materials, models, and rent? If I had some friends, if I were a little known, yes, then it would be easier; but I have no friends, and my job is to try and make them.

There may be a great fire in our hearts yet no one comes to warm themselves by it and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke

Ah, if only I could bring home to you how much more satisfaction you yourself might find, how much more you would be a friend to me if, instead of that frigid and unkind slighting and keeping me at a distance (only think of last summer, and the preceding summers!), you could at long last gain the conviction that this is not the right way.