Vincent van Gogh

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

Great things are not done by impulse but by a series of small things brought together.

Great things are not something accidental but must certainly be willed.

I dream my painting and then I paint my dream.

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever comes to sit by it.

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?

I feel the need of relations and friendship of affection of friendly intercourse. ... I cannot miss these things without feeling as does any other intelligent man a void and a deep need.

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

I am seeking I am striving I am in it with all my heart.

One of the most difficult things to do is to paint darkness which nonetheless has light in it.

As a painter I shall never signify anything of importance. I feel it absolutely.

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.

Still there is a calm pure harmony and music inside of me.

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

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.

I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.

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

...and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?