Vincent Van Gogh

“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.”

“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”

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

“The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.”

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

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

“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.”

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”

“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.”

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

“The way to know life is to love many things.”

“I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.”

“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.”

“If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”

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

“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.”

“A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.”

“There may be a great fire in our hearts, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke.”

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

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

“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.”

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

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

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