Vincent van Gogh Quotes Proverbs, and Aphorisms

• March 30, 1853 – July 29, 1890
• Dutch
• Painter, Post-Impressionist Artist, Pioneer of Modern Art

Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter whose emotionally charged and vividly colored works had a profound influence on modern art. Despite creating over 2,000 artworks, including masterpieces like Starry Night, Sunflowers, and The Bedroom, he struggled with mental illness, poverty, and lack of recognition during his lifetime. Van Gogh’s expressive brushwork and bold use of color conveyed deep personal emotion, setting him apart from his contemporaries. Though he died by suicide at age 37, his reputation grew posthumously, and he is now celebrated as a symbol of artistic passion, emotional honesty, and the tragic genius who redefined the possibilities of visual expression.

1. “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.”
2. “The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.”
3. “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”
4. “The way to know life is to love many things.”
5. “But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.”
6. “Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.”
7. “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.”
8. “I wish they would only take me as I am.”
9. “How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?”
10. “One must work and dare if one really wants to live.”
11. “Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.”
12. “Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.”
13. “I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.”
14. “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.”
15. “There is no blue without yellow and without orange.”
16. “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.”
17. “I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed.”
18. “If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?”
19. “The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.”
20. “I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.”
21. “When I have a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.”
22. “An artist needn’t be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.”
23. “The best way to know God is to love many things.”
24. “Conscience is a man’s compass.”
25. “I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.”
26. “I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.”
27. “What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”
28. “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.”
29. “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.”
30. “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.”
31. “Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.”
32. “Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.”
33. “A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.”
34. “It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent.”
35. “As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.”
36. “Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.”
37. “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”
38. “I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”
39. “For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”
40. “Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul.”
41. “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.”