Great Throughts Treasury

"If the storm within gets too loud, I take a glass too much to stun myself."

"If we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen we take death to go to a star."

"If we study Japanese art, we see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time doing what?... He studies a single blade of grass."

"If you don’t have a dog--at least one--there is not necessarily anything wrong with you, but there may be something wrong with your life."

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

"If you truly love Nature, you will find beauty everywhere."

"If you work with love and intelligence, you develop a kind of armor 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."

"If you work diligently... without saying to yourself beforehand, 'I want to make this or that,' if you work as though you were making a pair of shoes, without artistic preoccupation, you will not always find you do well. But the days you least expect it, you will find a subject which holds its own with the work of those who have gone before."

"I'm able to get by very well in life, and also with my work, without beloved God. But I, a suffering human being, cannot survive without there being something greater than myself, which for me is my whole life- the creative power... I want to paint m"

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"I'm such a nobody."

"In an artist's life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing."

"In my view, I am often immensely rich, not in money, but (although just now perhaps not all the time) rich because I have found my metier, something I can devote myself to heart and soul and that gives inspiration and meaning to my life."

"In both figure and landscape … I want to get to the point where people say of my work: that man feels deeply, that man feels keenly."

"In a sense I'm glad that I've never learned how to paint."

"In painting I want to say something comforting in the way that music is comforting."

"In my painting of the 'All -Night Cafe' I've tried to express the idea that the cafe is a place where one can ruin oneself, become crazy and criminal. Through the contrast of the delicate pink, blood red and dark red, of mild Louis XV and Veronese gr"

"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."

"In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism and skepticism and humbug and we shall want to live more musically"

"In the future my name ought to be put in the catalogue as I sign it on the canvas, namely Vincent and not Van Gogh, for the simple reason that they do not know how to pronounce the latter name here."

"Instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I see before me, I make more arbitrary use of color to express myself more forcefully."

"Indigo with terra sienna, Prussian blue with burnt sienna, really give much deeper tones than pure black itself. When I hear people say ‘there is no black in nature’, I sometimes think, ‘There is no real black in colors either’. However, you must beware of falling into the error of thinking that the colorists do not use black, for of course as soon as an element of blue, red, or yellow is mixed with black, it becomes a gray, namely, a dark, reddish, yellowish, or bluish gray."

"It interests me tremendously to make copies... I started it by chance and I find it teaches me things."

"It is a pity that, as one gradually gains experience, one loses one's youth."

"It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning."

"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."

"It constantly remains a source of disappointment to me that my drawings are not yet what I want them to be. The difficulties are indeed numerous and great, and cannot be overcome at once. To make progress is a kind of miner’s work; it doesn’t advance as quickly as one would like, and as others also expect, but as one stands before such a task, the basic necessities are patience and faithfulness. In fact, I do not think much about the difficulties, because if one thought of them too much one would get stunned or disturbed. 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. Even though neither you nor I, in talking together, would come to any definite plans, etc., perhaps we might mutually strengthen that feeling that something is ripening within us. And that is what I should like."

"It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and too prudent."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"It is true that every day has its own evil, and it’s good too. But how difficult must life be, especially farther on when the evil of each day increases as far as worldly things go, if it is not strengthened and comforted by faith. And in Christ all worldly things may become better, and, as it were, sanctified. Theo, woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel; if I did not aim at that and possess faith and hope in Christ, it would be bad for me indeed, but no I have some courage."

"It may be true that there is no God here, but there must be one not far off, and at such a moment one feels His presence; which comes to the same as saying (and I readily give this sincere profession of faith): I believe in God, and that it is His wi"

"It was Richepin who said somewhere, 'The love of art means loss of real love'... True, but on the other hand, real love makes you disgusted with art."

"It seems to me it's a painter's duty to try to put an idea into his work."

"It would be difficult for me to express all my thoughts about it. It remains a constant disappointment to me that my drawings are not yet what I want them to be. The difficulties are indeed numerous and great, and cannot be overcome immediately. Maki"

"It's as interesting and as difficult to say a thing well as to paint it. There is the art of lines and colors, but the art of words exists too, and will never be less important."

"I've failed again!"

"It's better to have a gay life of it than to commit suicide."

"Just because of Rubens I am looking for a blonde model."

"Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, ‘You can't do a thing’. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerizes some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of `you can't' once and for all."

"Keep going, keep going come what may. But what is your final goal, you may ask. That goal will become clearer, will emerge slowly but surely, much as the draft turns into the sketch and the sketch into the 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."

"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."

"Let us keep courage and try to be patient and gentle. And let us not mind being eccentric, and make distinction between good and evil."

"Just try going outside and painting things on the spot! All sorts of things happen then. I had to pick off a good hundred or more flies from [my] canvases ... not to mention dust and sand [nor]the fact that if one carries them through heath and hedgerows for a couple of hours, a branch or two is likely to scratch them ... and that the effects one wants to capture change as the day wears on."

"Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more."

"Looking at the stars always makes me dream."

"Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it."

"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."