Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty, and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. He struggled with mental illness and remained poor and virtually unknown throughout his life. His paintings and drawings include some of the world's best-known, most popular, and most expensive pieces of art. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Vincent Van Gogh on love, art, nature.
Your profession is not what brings home your weekly paycheck, your profession is what you're put here on earth to do, with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling.
I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.
How lovely yellow is! It stands for the sun.
The way to know life is to love many things.
If one truly loves nature one finds beauty everywhere.
Vincent Van Gogh inspirational quote
Vincent Van Gogh Image Quotes
I dream my painting and I paint my dream. — Vincent Van Gogh
I often think that the night is more alive and richly colored than the day.
Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well. — Vincent Van Gogh
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. — Vincent Van Gogh
The more you love, the more you suffer. — Vincent Van Gogh
I would rather die of passion than of boredom.
Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more. — Vincent Van Gogh
If I succeed in putting some warmth and love into the work, then it will find friends. Carrying on working is the — Vincent Van Gogh
Everyone who works with love and with intelligence finds in the very sincerity of his love for nature and art a kind of armor against the opinions of other people. — Vincent Van Gogh
There is the same difference in a person before and after he is in love, as there is in an unlighted lamp and one that is burning. — Vincent Van Gogh
...and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough? — Vincent Van Gogh
As practice makes perfect, I cannot but make progress; each drawing one makes, each study one paints, is a step forward. — Vincent Van Gogh
There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting. — Vincent Van Gogh
Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion. — Vincent Van Gogh
Sometimes art seems to be something very sublime, and, as you say, something sacred. — Vincent Van Gogh
As long as autumn lasts, I shall not have hands, canvas and colors enough to paint the beautiful things I see. — Vincent Van Gogh
Art is something greater and higher than our own skill or knowledge or learning. That art is something which, though produced by human hands, is not wrought by hands alone, but wells up from a deeper source, from a man's soul. — Vincent Van Gogh
The great artist is the simplifier. — Vincent Van Gogh
... life is too short to do the whole. — Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh Quotes About Nature
Try to walk as much as you can, and keep your love for nature, for that is the true way to learn to understand art more and more. Painters understand nature and love her and teach us to see her. If one really loves nature, one can find beauty everywhere. — Vincent Van Gogh
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. — Vincent Van Gogh
But after all I find in my work an echo of what struck me. I see that nature has told me something, has spoken to me, and that I have put it down in shorthand. In my shorthand there may be words that cannot be deciphered. There may be mistakes or gap — Vincent Van Gogh
One begins by plaguing oneself to no purpose in order to be true to nature, and one concludes by working quietly from one's own palette alone, and then nature is the result. — Vincent Van Gogh
Sometimes I long so much to do landscape, just as one would go for a long walk to refresh oneself, and in all of nature, in trees for instance, I see expression and a soul. — Vincent Van Gogh
Painters understand nature and love it, and teach us to see. — Vincent Van Gogh
I can't work without a model. I won't say I turn my back on nature ruthlessly in order to turn a study into a picture, arranging the colors, enlarging and simplifying; but in the matter of form I am too afraid of departing from the possible and the true. — Vincent Van Gogh
I myself am quite absorbed by the delicate yellow, delicate soft green, delicate violet of a ploughed and weeded piece of soil. — Vincent Van Gogh
If you work with love and intelligence, you develop a kind of armour against people's opinions, just because of the sincerity of your love for nature and art. Nature is also severe and, to put it that way, hard, but never deceives and always helps you to move forward. — Vincent Van Gogh
I devour nature ceaselessly. I exaggerate, sometimes I make changes in the subject; but still I don't invent the whole picture. On the contrary, I find it already there. It's a question of picking out what one wants from nature. — Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh Quotes About Expressive
I tried to express through red and green the terrible passions of humanity. — Vincent Van Gogh
Occasionally, in times of worry, I've longed to be stylish, but on second thought I say no-just let me be myself-and express rough, yet true things with rough workmanship. — Vincent Van Gogh
I am always in the hope to express the love of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors - colors which marry each other... complement each other as a man and a woman do. — Vincent Van Gogh
To express a marriage of two complementary colors, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones. — Vincent Van Gogh
To express hope by some star, the eagerness of a soul by a sunset radiance. Certainly there is nothing in that of stereoscopic realism, but is it not something that actually exists? — Vincent Van Gogh
There is something intimate about painting I cannot explain to you ? but it is so delightful just for expressing one's feelings. — Vincent Van Gogh
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
I use color in a completely arbitrary way in order to express myself powerfully. — Vincent Van Gogh
We spent our whole lives in unconsous excercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of words — Vincent Van Gogh
What a splendid thing watercolour is to express atmosphere and distance, so that the figure is surrounded by air and can breathe in it. — Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh Quotes About Colorful
There is no blue without yellow and without orange. — Vincent Van Gogh
Color in a picture is like enthusiasm in life. — Vincent Van Gogh
Yellow is capable of charming God. — Vincent Van Gogh
One can speak poetry just by arranging colors well, just as one can say comforting things in music. — Vincent Van Gogh
Cobalt is a divine color and there is nothing as fine for putting an atmosphere round things. Carmine is the red of wine and is warm and lively like wine. The same goes for emerald green too. It's false economy to dispense with them, with those colors. Cadmium as well. — Vincent Van Gogh
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
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
There are colors which cause each other to shine brilliantly, which form a couple which complete each other like man and woman. — Vincent Van Gogh
Suffice it to say that black and white are also colors... for their simultaneous contrast is as striking as that of green and red, for instance. — Vincent Van Gogh
The Mediterranean has the color of mackerel, changeable I mean. You don't always know if it is green or violet, you can't even say it's blue, because the next moment the changing reflection has taken on a tint of rose or gray. — Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh Quotes About Passionate
To die for the sake of dying - I prefer to die of passion than to die of boredom! — Vincent Van Gogh
Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the truly passionate painter who dares-and who has once broken the spell of 'you can't.' — Vincent Van Gogh
I am a man of passions, capable of and subject to doing more or less foolish things- which I happen to regret, more or less, afterwards. — Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh Quotes About Dream
I don't know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream. — Vincent Van Gogh
For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. — Vincent Van Gogh
You can feel the stars and the infinity of the sky since life, in spite of everything, is like a dream. — Vincent Van Gogh
The best pictures are always those one dreams of when one is smoking a pipe in bed, but which never get done. But still one ought to try, however incompetent one may feel before the unspeakable perfection and radiant splendour of nature. — Vincent Van Gogh
For myself, I declare I don't know anything about it. But the sight of the stars always makes me dream. — Vincent Van Gogh
I confess I do not know why, but looking at the stars always makes me dream. — Vincent Van Gogh
...to look at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots of a map representing towns and villages. Why, I ask myself, should the shining dots of the sky not be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France? — Vincent Van Gogh
I always dream a painting like that, with a group of lively figures of the pals. — Vincent Van Gogh
The sight of stars makes me dream. — Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh Quotes About Life
Close friends are truly life's treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone. — Vincent Van Gogh
As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed. — Vincent Van Gogh
What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? — Vincent Van Gogh
It is only too true that a lot of artists are mentally ill - it's a life which, to put it mildly, makes one an outsider. I'm all right when I completely immerse myself in work, but I'll always remain half crazy. — Vincent Van Gogh
Describing Starry Night: Firmament and planets both disappeared, but the mighty breath which gives life to all things and in which all is bound up remained. — Vincent Van Gogh
Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all. — Vincent Van Gogh
And painted portraits have a life of their own that comes from deep in the soul of the painter and where the machine can't go. — Vincent Van Gogh
Let life be beautiful like summer flowers and death be like autumn leaves. Rabindranath Tagore What a simple thing death is, just as simple as the falling of an autumn leaf. — Vincent Van Gogh
I often think of you all, one cannot do what one wants in life. The more you feel attached to a spot, the more ruthlessly you are compelled to leave it, but the memories remain, and one remembers - as in a looking glass, darkly - one's absent friends. — Vincent Van Gogh
To save a life is a real and beautiful thing. To make a home for the homeless, yes, it is a thing that must be good; whatever the world may say, it cannot be wrong. — Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh Quotes About Work
I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process. — Vincent Van Gogh
I work even in the middle of the day, in the full sunshine, and I enjoy it like a cicada. — Vincent Van Gogh
One must work and dare if one really wants to live. — Vincent Van Gogh
But for one's health as you say, it is very necessary to work in the garden and see the flowers growing. — Vincent Van Gogh
To do good work one must eat well, be well housed, have one's fling from time to time, smoke one's pipe, and drink one's coffee in peace — Vincent Van Gogh
The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech. — Vincent Van Gogh
What is drawing? It is working oneself through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. — Vincent Van Gogh
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. — Vincent Van Gogh
My opinion is that the best thing would be to work on till art lovers feel drawn toward it of their own accord, instead of having to praise or to explain it. — Vincent Van Gogh
Ideas for work are coming to me in abundance...I'm going like a painting-locomotive. — Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh Famous Quotes And Sayings
I dream my painting and I paint my dream. — Vincent Van Gogh
Art is to console those who are broken by life. — Vincent Van Gogh
The way to know life is to love many things. — Vincent Van Gogh
A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke. — Vincent Van Gogh
What am I in the eyes of most people - a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person - somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then - even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. — Vincent Van Gogh
I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process. — Vincent Van Gogh
I don't know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream. — Vincent Van Gogh
There is no blue without yellow and without orange. — Vincent Van Gogh
There is peace even in the storm — Vincent Van Gogh
The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. — Vincent Van Gogh
When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars. — Vincent Van Gogh
What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? — Vincent Van Gogh
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
Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it. — Vincent Van Gogh
So often, a visit to a bookshop has cheered me, and reminded me that there are good things in the world. — Vincent Van Gogh
It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. — Vincent Van Gogh
If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning. — Vincent Van Gogh
But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things. — Vincent Van Gogh
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 — Vincent Van Gogh
We have very beautiful bad weather here at present - rain, wind, thunder - but with splendid effects; that's why I like it. — Vincent Van Gogh
A good picture is equivalent to a good deed. — Vincent Van Gogh
I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate. — Vincent Van Gogh
I wish they would only take me as I am. — Vincent Van Gogh
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
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. — Vincent Van Gogh
It isn't an easy job to paint oneself - at any rate if it is to be different from a photograph. And you see - this, in my opinion, is the advantage that impressionism possesses over all the other things; it is not banal, and one seeks after a deeper resemblance than the photograph. — Vincent Van Gogh
I can't change the fact that my paintings don't sell. But the time will come when people will recognize that they are worth more than the value of the paints used in the picture. — Vincent Van Gogh
How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be? — Vincent Van Gogh
I began to paint again, even though I could barely hold the brush, but knowing exactly what I wanted to paint, I began three more large canvases... of large wheat fields under cloudy skies, and it did not take a great deal to express sadness and loneliness... I believe these paintings say what words cannot. — Vincent Van Gogh
There is no such thing as an ugly woman. — Vincent Van Gogh
One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul, and yet no one ever comes to sit by it. — Vincent Van Gogh
In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism, skepticism and humbug, and we shall want to live more musically. — Vincent Van Gogh
I do not intend to spare myself, not to avoid emotions or difficulties. I don't care much whether I live a longer or shorter time... the world concerns me only in so far as I feel a certain debt toward it, because I have walked on this earth for thirty years, and out of gratitude I want to leave some souvenir. — Vincent Van Gogh
I must continue to follow the path I take now. If I do nothing, if I study nothing, if I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it - keep going, keep going come what may. — Vincent Van Gogh
There is but one Paris and however hard living may be here, and if it became worse and harder even—the French air clears up the brain and does good—a world of good. — Vincent Van Gogh
How to achieve such anomalies, such alterations and re-fashionings of reality so what comes out of it are lies, if you like, but lies that are more than literal truth. — Vincent Van Gogh
I sometimes think there is nothing so delightful as drawing. — Vincent Van Gogh
The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others. — Vincent Van Gogh
Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. — Vincent Van Gogh
Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model. — Vincent Van Gogh
The world concerns me only in so far as I feel a certain indebtedness and duty toward it because I have walked this 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 taste in art, but to express a sincere human feeling. — Vincent Van Gogh
How right it is to love flowers and the greenery of pines and ivy and hawthorn hedges; they have been with us from the very beginning. — Vincent Van Gogh
Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy. — Vincent Van Gogh
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. — Vincent Van Gogh
The best way to know God is to love many things. — Vincent Van Gogh
It is with the reading of books the same as with looking at pictures; one must, without doubt, without hesitations, with assurance, admire what is beautiful. — Vincent Van Gogh
What a simple thing death is, just as simple as the falling of an autumn leaf. — Vincent Van Gogh
I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say "he feels deeply, he feels tenderly". — Vincent Van Gogh
The cypresses are always occupying my thoughts. — Vincent Van Gogh
Conscience is a man's compass. — Vincent Van Gogh
I am unable to describe exactly what is the matter with me; now and then there are horrible fits of anxiety, apparently without cause, or otherwise a feeling of emptiness and fatigue in the head. — Vincent Van Gogh
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? — Vincent Van Gogh
Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. — Vincent Van Gogh
If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men? — Vincent Van Gogh
To express the love of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of Kindred tones. To express the thought of a brow by the radiance of light tone against a somber background; to express hope by some star, the eagerness of a soul by a sunset radiance. — Vincent Van Gogh
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
Love always causes trouble, that's true, but in its favour, it energizes. — Vincent Van Gogh
Life Lessons by Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh's life is a reminder to never give up on your dreams, even in the face of adversity. He persevered through poverty and mental illness to create some of the most iconic artwork in history.
Van Gogh's story also serves as an example of the power of resilience and the importance of staying true to yourself and your vision, no matter what life throws at you.
Finally, his legacy shows us that beauty can be found even in the darkest of places, and that it is possible to create something meaningful and lasting out of our struggles.
Citation
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