“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”
“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.”
“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”
“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.”
“I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.”
“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”
“There may be a great fire in our hearts, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke.”
“I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed.”
“The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.”
“A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.”
“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”
“There is no blue without yellow and without orange.”
“Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.”
“How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?”
“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.”
“I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”
“One must work and dare if one really wants to live.”
“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.”
“I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.”
“As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.”
“It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent.”
“Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.”
“Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul.”
“I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.”
“Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.”
“Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.”
“Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.”
“I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.”
“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.”
“But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.”
“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.”
“I wish they would only take me as I am.”
“Conscience is a man’s compass.”
“When I have a terrible need of – shall I say the word – religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.”
“The way to know life is to love many things.”
“The best way to know God is to love many things.”
“An artist needn’t be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.”
“If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?”
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