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
Love is something eternal; the aspect may change, but not the essence.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Love
I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Painting, Painters, Art
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
Man is not on the earth solely for his own happiness. He is there to realize great things for humanity.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Humanity
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
It is a pity that, as one gradually gains experience, one loses one’s youth.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Experience, Youth
I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Night, Art
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
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
If you truly love Nature, you will find beauty everywhere.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Gardening
One must work and dare if one really wants to live.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Work
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 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
Great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Optimism, Vision, Health, Positive Attitudes
I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Commitment, Dedication
Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.
—Vincent van Gogh
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
When I have a terrible need of – shall I say the word – religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Imagination
For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Stars, Uncertainty
Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.
—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. 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, Imagination, Love, Accomplishment, Open-mindedness
Life is not long for anybody, and the problem is only to make something of it.
—Vincent van Gogh
What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Bravery, Courage, Courage to Begin
Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Winning
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
I wish they would only take me as I am.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Acceptance, Wishes, One liners
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
Topics: Emotions, Instincts
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: Art, Photography, Artists, Arts
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
I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.
—Vincent van Gogh
Topics: Adventure
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