94 Van Gogh Quotes

Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch painter whose work is among the most famous and recognizable in the field of Western Art today.

Though his paintings are displayed in museums all over the world today, the artist's story is quite a sad one. He led a tough and poverty-stricken life, devoting all of his energy to art without receiving any recognition.

He also suffered from depression, which allegedly drove him to cut off his ear, and he took his own life at just 37 years of age, with his bleak last words being, "The sadness will last forever".

In an almost cruel twist of fate, Van Gogh gained recognition for his work only after his death; with his unique style and richly colored landscapes, self-portraits, and still-life paintings, Van Gogh has influenced many areas of modern art.

Read on to immerse yourself in these quotes by the great painter. They might even make you think deeply about life and motivate you to do your best at everything you can.

Famous Van Gogh Quotes

Here are some of the painter's most famous sayings.

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

“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.”

“I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.”

"Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague."

"Someday death will take us to another star."

"The beginning is perhaps more difficult than anything else, but keep heart, it will turn out all right.”

"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."

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

"I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove."

“It always strikes me, and it is very peculiar, that when we see the image of indescribable and unutterable desolation – of loneliness, of poverty and misery, the end of all things, or their extreme – then rises in our mind the thought of God.”

“I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.”

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

“Conscience is a man’s compass.”

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

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

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

“You write in your letter something which I sometimes feel also: Sometimes I do not know how I shall pull through.”

“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.”

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

“One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul and yet no one ever comes to sit by it. Passersby see only a whisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.”

“Don’t lose heart if it’s very difficult at times, everything will come out all right and nobody can, in the beginning, do as he wishes.”

“I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.”

“Love always causes trouble, that’s true, but in its favor, it energizes.”

“Ideas for work are coming to me in abundance…I’m going like a painting-locomotive.”

“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.”

“I wish they would only take me as I am.”

“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.”

“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”

“As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.”

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

"The sunflower is mine, in a way."

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

“I haven’t got it yet, but I’m hunting it and fighting for it, I want something serious, something fresh—something with soul in it! Onward, onward.”

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

“Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all.”

Van Gogh Quotes About Love

Van Gogh loved nature, painting, and sunflowers. Here's what the artist had to say about love.

“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.”

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

“I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”

“Love is eternal – the aspect may change, but not the essence. There is the same difference in a person before and after he is in love as there is in an unlighted lamp and one that is burning. The lamp was there and was a good lamp, but now it is shedding light too.”

"If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.”

“Close friends are truly life’s treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone.”

“There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”

“But you must love with a high, serious intimate sympathy, with a will, with intelligence, and you must always seek to know more thoroughly, better, and more.”

"Whoever loves much, performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well."

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

“Love is something eternal; the aspect may change, but not the essence.”

“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.”

Van Gogh Quotes About Art

Being a painter, Van Gogh had more than a thing or two to say about art!

“I consciously choose the dog’s path through life. I shall be poor; I shall be a painter…”

“I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.”

“I am an artist… It’s self-evident that what that word implies is looking for something all the time without ever finding it in full. It is the opposite of saying, ‘I know all about it. I’ve already found it.’ As far as I’m concerned, the word means, ‘I am looking. I am hunting for it. I am deeply involved.”

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

“Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.”

“Drawing is the root of everything, and the time spent on that is actually all profit.”

"I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say 'he feels deeply, he feels tenderly'."

“As you can see, I am immersing myself in color—I’ve held back from that until now; and I don’t regret it.”

“I hope to depart in no other way than looking back with love and wistfulness and thinking, oh paintings that I would have made..”

“…and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?”

“I am crazy about two colors: carmine and cobalt. Cobalt is a divine color and there is nothing so beautiful for creating atmosphere. Carmine is as warm and lively as wine… the same with emerald green.”

“I think that I still have it in my heart someday to paint a bookshop with the front yellow and pink in the evening…like a light in the midst of the darkness.”

“There is no blue without yellow and without orange.”

“Suffice it to say that black and white are also colors… for their simultaneous contrast is as striking as that of green and red, for instance.”

"Art is to console those who are broken by life."

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

“Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul.”

“I assure you that there’s a lot involved in compositions with figures. … It’s like weaving… you must control and keep an eye on several things at once.”

“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”

“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.”

"Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the painter who dares and who has broken the spell of 'you can't' once and for all."

Philosophical Van Gogh Quotes

These quotes by Van Gogh will make you stop and think about life- they are quite profound.

"Your profession is not what brings home your weekly paycheck, your profession is what you're put here on earth to do, with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling."

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

“There is peace even in the storm.”

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

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

"Seek only light and freedom and do not immerse yourself too deeply in the worldly mire."

"The victory one would gain after a whole life of work and effort is better than one that is gained sooner."

"The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too."

"To suffer without complaint is the only lesson we have to learn in this life."

“A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke.”

"I can't change the fact that my paintings don't sell. But the time will come when people will recognize that they are worth more than the value of the paints used in the picture."

“And the memories of all we have loved stay and come back to us in the evening of our life. They are not dead but sleep, and it is well to gather a treasure of them.”

Van Gogh Quotes About Creativity

Here are some inspirational quotes about creativity to make you want to pick up your pencil or paintbrush.

“I would rather die of passion than of boredom.”

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

“I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.”

“I do not know myself how I paint it. I sit down with a white board before the spot that strikes me. I look at what is before my eyes, and say to myself, that white board must become something.”

"But for one's health as you say, it is very necessary to work in the garden and see the flowers growing."

“Sometimes I long so much to do landscape, just as one would go for a long walk to refresh oneself, and in all of nature, in trees for instance, I see expression and a soul.”

“One must spoil as many canvases as one succeeds with.”

“Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.”

“Occasionally, in times of worry, I’ve longed to be stylish, but on second thought I say no—just let me be myself—and express rough, yet true things with rough workmanship.”

“One can speak poetry just by arranging colors well, just as one can say comforting things in music.”

“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”

"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."

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

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