"I would rather die of passion than of boredom."

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

"I often think of you all, one cannot do what one wants in life. The more you feel attached to a spot, the more ruthlessly you are compelled to leave it, but the memories remain, and one remembers – as in a looking glass, darkly – one’s absent friends."

"The best way to know life is to love many things"

"So often, a visit to a bookshop has cheered me, and reminded me that there are good things in the world."

"How rich art is, if one can only remember what one has seen, one is never empty of thoughts or truly lonely, never alone."

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

"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."

"Looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map."

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

"There is peace even in the storm."

"We feel lonely now and then and long for friends and think we should be quite different and happier if we found a friend of whom we might say: He is the one. But you, too, will begin to learn that there is much self-deception behind this longing; if we yielded too much to it, it would lead us from the road."

"What is done in love is done well."

"Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague."

"I take great care of myself by carefully shutting myself away."

"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."

"I dream my painting and I paint my dream."

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

"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."

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

"Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me."

"The sunflower is mine, in a way."

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

"Success is sometimes the outcome of a whole string of failures."

"The only time I feel alive is when I’m painting."

"There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."

"If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle."

"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."

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

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

"Admire as much as you can. Most people do not admire enough."

"I don’t know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream."

"Knowledge in the head and virtue in the heart, time devoted to study or business, instead of show and pleasure, are the way to be useful and consequently happy."

"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."

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

"Those who love much, do much and accomplish much, and whatever is done with love is done well…. Love is the best and noblest thing in the human heart, especially when it is tested by life as gold is tested by fire. Happy is he who has loved much, and although he may have wavered and doubted, he has kept that divine spark alive and returned to what was in the beginning and ever shall be."

"I will not live without love."

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

"You and I ought not to die,before we have explained ourselves to each other."

"I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed."

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

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

"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."

"What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. 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."

"What color is in a picture, enthusiasm is in life."

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

"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."

"The lamps are burning and the starry sky is over it all."

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."

"The sadness will last forever."

"I shouldn’t precisely have chosen madness if there had been any choice, but once such a thing has taken hold of you, you can’t very well get out of it."

"I’m such a nobody."

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

"I long so much to make beautiful things. But beautiful things require effort and disappointment and perseverance."

"So what do you want? Does what happens inside show on the outside? There is such a great fire in one’s soul, and yet nobody ever comes to warm themselves there, and passersby see nothing but a little smoke coming from the top of the chimney, and go on their way."

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

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

"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."

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

"We spent our whole lives in unconscious exercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of words."

"Only when I fall do I get up again."

"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."

"There is but one Paris and however hard living may be here, and if it became worse and harder even—the French air clears up the brain and does good—a world of good."

"When I have a terrible need of – shall I say the word – religion, then I go out and paint the stars."

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

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

"One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way."

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

"What preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way?"

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

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

"There was a sentence in your letter that struck me, I wish I were far away from everything, I am the cause of all, and bring only sorrow to everybody, I alone have brought all this misery on myself and others. These words struck me because that same feeling, just the same, not more nor less, is also on my conscience."

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

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

"We are surrounded by poetry on all sides…"

"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."

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

"It always strikes me, and it is very peculiar, that, whenever we see the image of indescribable and unutterable desolation—of loneliness, poverty, and misery, the end and extreme of things—the thought of God comes into one’s mind."

"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."

"I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it."

"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."

"I confess I do not know why, but looking at the stars always makes me 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."

"There is a great difference between one idler and another idler. There is someone who is an idler out of laziness and lack of character, owing to the baseness of his nature. If you like, you may take me for one of those. Then there is the other kind of idler, the idler despite himself, who is inwardly consumed by a great longing for action who does nothing because his hands are tied, because he is, so to speak, imprisoned somewhere, because he lacks what he needs to be productive, because disastrous circumstances have brought him forcibly to this end. Such a one does not always know what he can do, but he nevertheless instinctively feels, I am good for something! My existence is not without reason! I know that I could be a quite a different person! How can I be of use, how can I be of service? There is something inside me, but what can it be? He is quite another idler. If you like you may take me for one of those."

"I feel such a creative force in me: I am convinced that there will be a time when, let us say, I will make something good every day , on a regular basis….I am doing my very best to make every effort because I am longing so much to make beautiful things. But beautiful things mean painstaking work, disappointment, and perseverance."

"At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to me that night is still more richly coloured than the day; having hues of the most intense violets, blues and greens. If only you pay attention to it you will see that certain stars are lemon-yellow, others pink or a green, blue and forget-me-not brilliance. And without my expatiating on this theme it is obvious that putting little white dots on the blue-black is not enough to paint a starry sky."

"How right it is to love flowers and the greenery of pines and ivy and hawthorn hedges; they have been with us from the very beginning."

"And when I read, and really I do not read so much, only a few authors, – a few men that I discovered by accident – I do this because they look at things in a broader, milder and more affectionate way than I do, and because they know life better, so that I can learn from them."

"I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things."

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

"For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me want to dream."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"Christ alone, of all the philosophers, magicians, etc., has affirmed eternal life as the most important certainty, the infinity of time, the futility of death, the necessity and purpose of serenity and devotion. He lived serenely, as an artist greater than all other artists, scorning marble and clay and paint, working in the living flesh. In other words, this peerless artist, scarcely conceivable with the blunt instrument of our modern, nervous and obtuse brains, made neither statues nor paintings nor books. He maintained in no uncertain terms that he made … living men, immortals."

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

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

"The more you love, the more you suffer."

"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."