Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853–90) was a Dutch painter. He is now considered one of the most eminent of post-Impressionist painters, although he was not widely appreciated in his lifetime.
Van Gogh was initially a preacher in a mining community in southern Belgium and decided to become an artist at the age of 27. He moved around Europe, teaching himself to draw and paint, and taking financial support from his younger brother Theo.
Van Gogh completed more than 2,100 works, consisting of 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings, and sketches. After years of depression and frequent bouts of mental illness, he cut off part of his ear. At age 37, he shot himself, just when his work was beginning to be acknowledged.
Van Gogh remained poor and practically unknown throughout his life. He wrote thousands of letters to his brother Theo throughout his life. His post-impressionist work was deeply influenced by contact with impressionist painting and Japanese woodcuts. His most famous pictures include several studies of sunflowers. His paintings, notable for their beauty, emotion, and color, and a unique sense of observation, greatly influenced 20th-century art.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Vincent van Gogh
But what is your final goal, you may ask. That goal will become clearer, will emerge slowly but surely, much as the rough draught turns into a sketch, and the sketch into a painting through the serious work done on it, through the elaboration of the original vague idea and through the consolidation of the first fleeting and passing thought.
—Vincent van Gogh
It is a pity that, as one gradually gains experience, one loses one’s youth.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Experience, Youth
Conscience is a man’s compass.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: One liners, Conscience
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
If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Maturity
People are often unable to do anything, imprisoned as they are in I don’t know what kind of terrible, terrible, oh such terrible cage.
—Vincent van Gogh
Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.
—Vincent van Gogh
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
What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Courage to Begin, Courage, Bravery
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
Topics: Photography, Art, Artists
A weaver who has to direct and to interweave a great many little threads has no time to philosophize about it, but rather he is so absorbed in his work that he doesn’t think but acts, and he feels how things must go more than he can explain it.
—Vincent van Gogh
If one were to say but few words, though ones with meaning, one would do better than to say many that were only empty sounds, and just as easy to utter as they were of little use.
—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
Topics: Mistakes
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
Topics: Emotions
Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.
—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
Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.
—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
Topics: Danger, Anxiety, Acceptance, Fear, Risk
Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.
—Vincent van Gogh
I tell you, if one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of going wrong, one must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then. Many people think that they will become good just by doing no harm — but that’s a lie, and you yourself used to call it that. That way lies stagnation, mediocrity.
—Vincent van Gogh
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.
—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
Topics: Love
But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Love
The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Feelings, Love
If you truly love Nature, you will find beauty everywhere.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Gardening
For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Stars, Uncertainty
Great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Optimism, Vision, Positive Attitudes, Health
It is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to 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 well done.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Slavery, Accomplishment, Imagination, Open-mindedness, Love
The thing has already taken form in my mind before I start it. The first attempts are absolutely unbearable. I say this because I want you to know that if you see something worthwhile in what I am doing, it is not by accident but because of real direction and purpose.
—Vincent van Gogh
Love is something eternal; the aspect may change, but not the essence.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Love
How can I be useful. Of what service can I be. There is something inside me. What can it be?
—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
Topics: Books
I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Painters, Art, Painting
I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Dedication, Commitment
Life is not long for anybody, and the problem is only to make something of it.
—Vincent van Gogh
If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Dreams
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
Topics: Soul
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.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Understanding, Mastery, Excellence
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
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.
—Vincent van Gogh
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