Vincent van Gogh

“I am sure you will like it, it is such a fine business [art-dealer].. ..I am so glad that we shall both be in the same profession [art dealing] and in the same firm [Goupil and Co.]”

“Vindt maar mooi zooveel je kunt, de meesten vinden niet genoeg mooi.”

“Always continue walking a lot and loving nature, for that’s the real way to learn to understand art better and better. Painters understand nature and love it, and teach us to see.”

“I've got nature and art and poetry, and if that isn't enough, what is?”

“If I should find something it will probably be a position between clergy man and missionary in the suburbs of London among the working people. Do not speak to anybody about it yet.”

“Try to grasp the essence of what the great artists, the serious masters, say in their masterpieces, and you will again find God in them. One man has written or said it in a book, another in a painting.”

“Theo, your brother has preached for the first time last Sunday in God's dwelling.. ..it is a delightful thought that in the future wherever I shall come I shall preach the gospel; to do that well, one must have the gospel in one's heart, may the Lord give it to me.”

“Text: Psalm 119:19. I am a stranger on the earth, hide not Thy command ments from me.Are we what we dreamt we should be? No, but still the sorrows of life.. .,so much more numerous than we expected, the tossing to and fro in the world, they have covered it over, but it is not dead, it sleepeth.”

“The love between brothers is a strong support through life, that is an old truth, let us look for that support, may experience strengthen the bond between us, and let us be true and outspoken toward each other, let there he no secrets — as it is now.”

“When we are working at a difficult task and strive after a good thing, we are fighting a righteous battle, the direct reward of which is that we are kept from much evil. As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.”

“When I am writing I instinctively make a little drawing now and then like the one I sent you lately, and for instance, this morning, Elijah in the Desert.”

“May God give me the wisdom which I need and grant me what I so fervently desire, that is, to finish my studies as quickly as possible and he ordained, so that I can perform the practical duties of a clergyman.”

“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 to read, just as one must learn to see and learn to live.”

“..Now there is in the South of Belgium, in Hainault, in the neighborhood of Mons.. ..a district called the Borinage, that has a peculiar population of laborers who work in the numerous coal mines.. .I should very much like to go there as an evangelist.. ..St. Paul was three years in Arabia before he began to preach..”

“.You would also be mistaken if you [Theo] thought that I would do well to follow your advice literally, of becoming an engraver of bill-headings and visiting cards, or a bookkeeper or a carpenter's apprentice, - or else to devote myself to the baker's trade, - or many similar things.. ..that other people advise me.”

“Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney and then go on their way.”

“I felt my energy revive, and said to myself, 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. From that moment everything has seemed transformed for me.”

“I have often neglected my appearance. I admit it, and I also admit that it is "shocking." But look here, lack of money and poverty have something to do with it too, as well as a profound disillusionment, and besides, it is sometimes a good way of ensuring the solitude you need, of concentrating more or less on whatever study you are immersed in.”

“Now for the past five years or so, I don't know how long exactly, I have been more or less without permanent employment, wandering from pillar to post. You will say, ever since such and such a time you have been going downhill, you have been feeble, you have done nothing. Is that entirely true?”

“What has changed is that my life then was less difficult and my future seemingly less gloomy, but as far as my inner self, my way of looking at things and of thinking is concerned, that has not changed. But if there has indeed been a change, then it is that I think, believe and love more seriously now what I thought, believed and loved even then.”

“Do you know what makes the prison disappear? Every deep, genuine affection. Being friends, being brothers, loving, that is what opens the prison, with supreme power, by some magic force. Without these one stays dead. But whenever affection is revived, there life revives.”

“..by going on drawing those types of working people, etc., I hope to arrive at the point of being able to do illustration work for papers and books.”

“I said to Mauve: Do you approve of my coming here for a month or so and troubling you for some advice now and then, after that time I will have over come the first 'petites miseres' of painting.. .Well, Mauve at once set me down before a still life of a pair of old wooden shoes and some other objects, and so I could set to work.”

“How will it be with my work a year hence? Well, Mauve [van Gogh's cousin and art-teacher, in The Hague] understands all this and he will give me as much technical advice as he can, - that which fills my head and my heart must be expressed in drawing or pictures.”

“I feel a certain calm. There is safety in the midst of danger. What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? It will be a hard pull for me; the tide rises high, almost to the lips and perhaps higher still, how can I know? But I shall fight my battle, and sell my life dearly, and try to win and get the best of it.”

“Of course I should be very happy to sell a drawing but I am happier still when a real artist like Weissenbruch says about an unsalable??? study or drawing: "That is true to nature, I could work from that myself."”

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

“Variant: Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”

“Some good must come by clinging to the right. 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.”

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