Vincent Van Gogh

Just dash something down if you see a blank canvas staring at you with a certain imbecility. You do not know how paralyzing it is, that staring of a blank canvas, which says to the painter: you don’t know anything.

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

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.

I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.

An artist needn’t be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.

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.

Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter's soul.

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.

Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more.

Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination do not become the slave of your model.

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to. . . .

It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all to prudent.

A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it.

I wish they would only take me as I am.

I confess I do not know why, but looking at the stars always makes me dream.

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

I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.

I have ... a terrible need ... shall I say the word? ... of religion. Then I go out at night and paint the stars.

I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.

What molting time is to birds, so adversity or misfortune is . . . for us humans.

As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties, the inmost strength of the heart is developed.

Conscience is a man’s compass, and though the needle sometimes deviates, though one often perceives irregularities in directing one’s course by it, still one must try to follow its direction.

The best way to know God is to love many things.

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

If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

I dream my painting and then paint my dream.

I cannot help it that my pictures do not sell. Nevertheless the time will come when people will see that they are worth more than the price of the paint.

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.