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.
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.
You can’t be at the pole and the equator at the same time. You must choose your own line, as I hope to do, and it will probably be color.
My opinion is that the best thing would be to work on till art lovers feel drawn toward it of their own accord, instead of having to praise or to explain it.
I never get tired of the blue sky.
Find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful.
My sketchbook is a witness of what I am experiencing, scribbling things whenever they happen.
I am risking my life for my work, and half my reason has gone.
I myself am quite absorbed by the delicate yellow, delicate soft green, delicate violet of a ploughed and weeded piece of soil.
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.
To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, who with irresistible force urges us towards more loving.
Van Gogh was so under appreciated in his time, he sold only one of his 900 paintings while alive. Posthumously, he became one of the most famous artists of all time and his work is now considered priceless. Oh the irony.
We have very beautiful bad weather here at present – rain, wind, thunder – but with splendid effects; that’s why I like it.
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.
The large majority of people are asleep and do not wish to wake up.
If you end up falling in love with someone, it’s because of them. If you end up hating someone, it’s because of you.
One must never let the fire go out in one’s soul, but keep it burning.
I believe more and more that God must not be judged on this earth. It is one of His sketches that has turned out badly.
I believe it is one’s duty to paint the rich and magnificent aspects of nature. We need gaiety and happiness, hope and love.
In general, and most especially with artists, I pay as much attention to the man who does the work, as to the work itself.