Vincent Van Gogh Quotes - Page 11

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Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas. But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily.

Vincent Van Gogh

Men, Forever, Energy

Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.2333, Delphi Classics

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And in a picture I want to say something comforting, as music is comforting.

Vincent Van Gogh

Art, Comforting, Want

"The Pursuit of Spiritual Wisdom: The Thought and Art of Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin".

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I want to do drawings which touch some people... In either figure or landscape I wish to express, not sentimental melancholy, but serious sorrow.

Vincent Van Gogh

Sadness, Drawing, People

Vincent van Gogh (1971). “Van Gogh's "diary"; the artist's life in his own words and art”

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

Vincent Van Gogh

Adversity, Bird, Humans

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

Vincent Van Gogh

Mistake, Fall, Knowledge

Vincent van Gogh, Anthon Gerhard Alexander Rappard (ridder van), Anthon van Rappard (1936). “Letters to an artist: from Vincent van Gogh to Anton ridder van Rappard, 1881-1885”

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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.

Vincent Van Gogh

Beautiful, Mysterious, Excitement

Vincent van Gogh, Victoria Charles (2014). “Vincent van Gogh”, p.130, Parkstone International

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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.

Vincent Van Gogh

Men, Trying, Sometimes

Vincent van Gogh, Vincent Willem Gogh (1927). “The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh to His Brother, 1872-1886: With a Memoir by His Sister-in-law, J. Van Gogh-Bonger ...”

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But I must work on in full calmness and serenity... The world concerns me only in so far as I feel a certain debt and duty towards it, because I have walked on the earth for thirty years, and out of gratitude want to leave some souvenir in the shape of drawings or pictures, not made to please a certain tendency in art, but to express a sincere human feeling. So this work is the aim-and through concentration upon that one idea, everything one does is simplified. Now the work goes slowly-a reason the more to lose no time.

Vincent Van Gogh

Gratitude, Art, Years

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I am astonished at the high prices paid for works by painters who are dead, prices none of them could expect when they were alive. It is a kind of tulip trade, in which living painters suffer but do not profit.

Vincent Van Gogh

Suffering, Alive, Kind

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I assure you that there's a lot involved in compositions with figures. ... It's like weaving... you must control and keep an eye on several things at once.

Vincent Van Gogh

Eye, Weaving, Figures

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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.

Vincent Van Gogh

Art, Nature, Reality

Vincent van Gogh, Mark Roskill (1997). “The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh”, p.156, Simon and Schuster

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... life is too short to do the whole.

Vincent Van Gogh

Time, Life Is Too Short, Japanese Art

Vincent van Gogh, Mark Roskill (1997). “The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh”, p.295, Simon and Schuster

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Since visiting the abatoirs of S. France I have stopped eating meat.

Vincent Van Gogh

Meat, France, Eating

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

Vincent Van Gogh

Inspiration, Science, Artist

Vincent van Gogh, Mark Roskill (1997). “The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh”, p.173, Simon and Schuster

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I consciously choose the dog's path through life. I shall be poor; I shall be a painter.

Vincent Van Gogh

Dog, Path, Poor

Naomi E. Maurer, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin (1998). “The Pursuit of Spiritual Wisdom: The Thought and Art of Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin”, p.50, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press

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One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.

Vincent Van Gogh

Love, Loneliness, Artist

Letter to Theo van Gogh from Cuesmes, www.vangoghletters.org. June 22-24, 1880.

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

Vincent Van Gogh

Art, Men, Fellow Man

Naomi E. Maurer, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin (1998). “The Pursuit of Spiritual Wisdom: The Thought and Art of Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin”, p.17, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press

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You can't be at the pole and the equator at the same time. You must choose your own line, as I hope to do, and it will probably be color.

Vincent Van Gogh

Color, Lines, Equator

Vincent van Gogh (1988). “Van Gogh: A Retrospective”, Park Lane Enterprises

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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.

Vincent Van Gogh

Believe, Thinking, Self

Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.1334, Delphi Classics

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We feel lonely now and then and long for friends and think we should be quite different and happier if we found a friend of whom we might say: “He is the one.” But you, too, will begin to learn that there is much self-deception behind this longing; if we yielded too much to it, it would lead us from the road.

Vincent Van Gogh

Lonely, Thinking, Self

Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.1113, Delphi Classics

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There are so many people, especially among our comrades, who imagine that words are nothing - on the contrary, isn't it true that saying a thing well is as interesting and as difficult as painting it?

Vincent Van Gogh

People, Interesting, Painting

Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.2676, Delphi Classics

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When using colors to recreate a general harmony of tones in nature, one loses it by painfully exact imitation. One keeps it by recreating in an equivalent color range, and that may not be exactly, or far from exactly, like the model.

Vincent Van Gogh

Color, May, Tone

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The uglier, older, meaner, iller, poorer I get, the more I wish to take my revenge by doing brilliant color, well arranged, resplendent.

Vincent Van Gogh

Revenge, Color, Wish

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I'm now painting with all the elan of a Marseillais eating soup, which won't surprise you when I tell you I'm painting large sunflowers. The idea? To decorate the studio, now there's hope of Gauguin living here. I aim at a dozen panels of sunflowers in the room I've set aside for Gauguin.

Vincent Van Gogh

Ideas, Sunflower, Dozen

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We take death to reach a star

Vincent Van Gogh

Stars

Naomi E. Maurer, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin (1998). “The Pursuit of Spiritual Wisdom: The Thought and Art of Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin”, p.113, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press

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Born: March 30, 1853
Died: July 29, 1890
Occupation: Painter
Cite this Page: Citation

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