Quotes by Vincent van Gogh

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

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

“Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.”

“I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.”

“Let me stop there, but my God, how beautiful Shakespeare is, who else is as mysterious as he is; his language and method are like a brush trembling with excitement and ecstasy. But one must learn t...”

“As a painter I shall never signify anything of importance. I feel it absolutely.”

“One of the most difficult things to do is to paint darkness which nonetheless has light in it.”

“Painting is a faith and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.”

“Still there is a calm pure harmony and music inside of me.”

“I am seeking I am striving I am in it with all my heart.”

“I feel the need of relations and friendship of affection of friendly intercourse. ... I cannot miss these things without feeling as does any other intelligent man a void and a deep need.”

“But are not this struggle and even the mistakes one may make better and do they not develop us more than if we kept systematically away from emotions?”

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

“I dream my painting and then I paint my dream.”

“Great things are not something accidental but must certainly be willed.”

“Great things are not done by impulse but by a series of small things brought together.”

“It's as interesting and as difficult to say a thing well as to paint it. There is the art of lines and colours but the art of words exists too and will never be less important.”

“There is but one Paris and however hard living may be here, and if it became worse and harder eventhe French air clears up the brain and does gooda world of good.”

“I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.”

“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 w...”