Vincent Van Gogh

Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.

I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.

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

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

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

There is no blue without yellow and without orange.

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

Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.

If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things.

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality is more important than the feeling for pictures.

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

I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.

If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?

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.

How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?

When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.

But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.

I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed.

One must work and dare if one really wants to live.

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.