Top 400 Vincent Van Gogh Quotes (2024 Update)
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351. “Every man must bear his own burden.”

— Vincent van Gogh

352. “I myself believe that there is in every painter’s life a period of making absurdities. In my case I think that period is already long past.”

— Vincent van Gogh

353. “And then there are painters who never do anything that is no good, who cannot do anything bad, just as there are ordinary people who can do nothing but good.”

— Vincent van Gogh

354. “Painting a picture is as difficult as finding a large or a small diamond. Now, however, whereas everybody recognizes the value of a louis d’or or a pure pearl, those who cherish pictures and believe in them are unfortunately rare. But they exist nonetheless.”

— Vincent van Gogh

355. “One morning, after many dark nights of despair, an irrepressible longing to live will announce to us the fact that all is finished and that suffering has no more meaning than happiness.”

— Vincent van Gogh

356. “Victor Hugo says God is an eclipsing lighthouse, and certainly now we are passing through that eclipse. I only wish that someone could prove to us something calming which comforted us, so that we stopped feeling guilty or unhappy and that we could go forward without losing ourselves in the solitude or nothingness, and without having to fear every step, or to nervously calculate the harm we may unintentionally be doing to others.”

— Vincent van Gogh

357. “I work as diligently on my canvases as the laborers do in their fields.”

— Vincent van Gogh

358. “Yet even then I do not think that my madness would take the form of persecution mania, since when in a state of excitement my feelings lead me rather to the contemplation of eternity, and eternal life. But all the same I must beware of my nerves, etc.”

— Vincent van Gogh

359. “What else can one do, when we think of all the things we do not know the reason for, than go look at a field of wheat? The history of those plants is like our own; for aren’t we, who live on bread, to a considerable extent like wheat, at least aren’t we forced to submit to growing like a plant without the power to move, by which I mean in what way our imagination impels us, and to being reaped when we are ripe, like the same wheat?”

— Vincent van Gogh

360. “If I should later come to see that I did wrong, well, then I shall of course be sorry, but as it is I have been unable to see how else I could possibly have acted. When somebody tells me decisively, ‘Get out of my house, the sooner the better, in half an hour rather than an hour,’ well then, my dear fellow, it doesn’t take a quarter of an hour for me to leave, never to return either.”

— Vincent van Gogh

361. “Sorrow is better than joy – and even in mirth the heart is sad – and it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasts, for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. Our nature is sorrowful but for those who have learnt and are learning to look at Jesus Christ, there is always reason to rejoice.”

— Vincent van Gogh

362. “It is true, however, that first impressions often change, for we know only too well that all is not gold that glitters and that though there may be a bright dawn, there is also a dark midnight and a burning, oppressive heat at noon.”

— Vincent van Gogh

363. “It is possible that these great geniuses are only madmen, and that one must be mad oneself to have boundless faith in them and a boundless admiration for them. If this is true, I should prefer my insanity to the sanity of the others.”

— Vincent van Gogh

364. “Spero di avere un po’ di fortuna con quel quadro dei mangiatori di patate.”

— Vincent van Gogh

365. “O never think the dead are dead, So long as there are men alive, The dead will live, the dead will live.” That’s how I feel it. Nothing sadder than that.”

— Vincent van Gogh

366. “I, for my part, am always glad that I have read the Bible more carefully than many people do nowadays, just because it gives me some peace of mind to know that there used to be such lofty ideals.”

— Vincent van Gogh

367. “Goodbye, write again between times if you can. As to the money, do what you can, but remember that we must try our utmost to succeed. And I won’t let that idea of painting portraits go, for it is a good thing to fight for, to show people that there is more in them than the photographer can possibly get out of them with his machine.”

— Vincent van Gogh

368. “Em suma, quero chegar ao ponto em que digam de minha obra: este homem sente profundamente, e este homem sente delicadamente.”

— Vincent van Gogh

369. “In the midst of life we are near death, that is a phrase which touches each one of us personally, it is a truth we see again confirmed in what you tell me about Carolien van Stockum, and formerly we saw it in another member of the same family. It has touched me, and with all my heart I hope she may recover. Oh! what sorrow, what sadness and suffering there is in the world, in public as well as in private life.”

— Vincent van Gogh

370. “Quero fazer desenhos que impressionem certas pessoas.”

— Vincent van Gogh

371. “In Antwerp I did not even know what the impressionists were, now I have seen them and though not being one of the club yet I have much admired certain.”

— Vincent van Gogh

372. “For one’s own work, thoughts and observation are not enough, we need the comfort and blessing and guidance of a higher power, and that is something anyone who is at all serious and who longs to lift up his soul to the light is sure to recognize and experience. Pining for God works like leaven on dough.”

— Vincent van Gogh

373. “What I am in the eyes of most people – a nonetity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person – somebody who has no position in society and never will have, in short, the lowest of the low.”

— Vincent van Gogh

374. “The desire for women that you catch in Paris, isn’t it rather the effect of that very enervation which Gruby is the sworn enemy of than a sign of vigour? So you feel this desire disappearing at the very moment you are yourself again. The root of the evil lies in the constitution itself, in the fatal weakening of families from generation to generation, and besides that, in one’s unwholesome job and the dreary life in Paris. The root of the evil certainly lies there, and there’s no cure for it.”

— Vincent van Gogh

375. “And that I relinquished my share in the inheritance; inasmuch as during the last years I had lived in great discord with my father, I felt I did not have a right to anything that was his, and for that matter I did not covet it. You will agree with me that this puts a definite stop to all disagreements with my family. So there is an end of them, and otherwise I am on quite good terms with those at home.”

— Vincent van Gogh

376. “If I were living near you, I should try to make you understand that it might perhaps be more practical for you to paint with me than to write, and that you might be able to express your feelings more easily that way. In any case I can do something personally about your painting, but I am not in the writing profession.”

— Vincent van Gogh

377. “Today, Friday, I went there but could not see him. The intern and the attendant told me that after my wife left, he had had a terrible attack; he had a very bad night, and they had to put him in an isolated room. Since he has been locked in this room, he has eaten no food and utterly refused to talk. That is the exact state of your brother at present.”

— Vincent van Gogh

378. “Mind, as to Gauguin we must not give up the idea of coming to his aid if the suggestion is acceptable as it stands, but we do not need him. So do not think that working alone bothers me, and do not push the affair on my account, be very sure of that.”

— Vincent van Gogh

379. “Is the Bible enough for us? These days I think Jesus himself would say again to those who sit down in melancholy, “It is not here, it is risen. Why seek ye the living among the dead?”

— Vincent van Gogh

380. “But always those same conventional eyes, noses, mouths – waxlike and smooth and cold. It cannot but always remain lifeless. And the painted portraits have a life of their own, coming straight from the painter’s soul, which the machine cannot reach. The more one looks at photographs, the more one feels this, I think.”

— Vincent van Gogh

381. “When I came here I hoped it would be possible to make some connection with art lovers here, but up to the present I haven’t made the least progress in people’s affection. And Marseilles? I don’t know, but that may very well be nothing but an illusion. In any case I have quite given up gambling much on it. Often whole days pass without my speaking to anyone, except to ask for dinner or coffee. And it has been like that from the beginning.”

— Vincent van Gogh

382. “I believe that if we knew everything we should attain some serenity. Now, having as much of that serenity as possible, even when one knows little or nothing for certain, is perhaps a better remedy for all ills than what is sold in the pharmacy. Much of it comes by itself, one grows and develops of one’s own accord.”

— Vincent van Gogh

383. “I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed. I want – to be bound to Christ with unbreakable bonds and to feel these bonds. To be sorrowful yet always rejoicing. To live in and for Christ, to be one of the poor in His kingdom, steeped in the leaven, filled with His spirit, impelled by His Love, reposing in the Father with the repose of which I wrote to you in my last letter.”

— Vincent van Gogh

384. “You have been lucky to meet Guy de Maupassant. I have just read his first book, Des Vers, poems dedicated to his master Flaubert; there is one, “Au bord de l’eau,” which is already himself. What Van der Meer of Delft is to Rembrandt among the painters, he is to Zola among the French novelists.”

— Vincent van Gogh

385. “Thank you very much too for all the steps you have taken toward the exhibition of the Independents. On the whole I’m very glad that they’ve been put with the other impressionists.”

— Vincent van Gogh

386. “As to this region here, I know the country and the people too well and love them too much to be positively leaving them for good. I shall try to rent a room where I can put my things, and shall be safe then, in case I want to leave Antwerp for a time or if I get homesick for the country.”

— Vincent van Gogh

387. “Whenever we meet disappointment and sickness and trouble, my boy, let us thank Him for having brought us this hour, and let us not forget meekness, for it is written: ‘On this man will I look, even on him who is poor and sorrowful and who trembleth at My word.”

— Vincent van Gogh

388. “There was a time when I loved Vincent a lot and he was my best friend but that is over now. It seems to be even worse from his side, for he never loses an opportunity to show me that he despises me and that I revolt him. That makes the situation at home almost unbearable.”

— Vincent van Gogh

389. “There was enough reason for it too, as the whole of France was shaken. Certainly in our eyes the election and its results and its representatives are only symbols. But what it proves once more is that worldly ambition and fame pass away, but the human heart beats the same to this day, in as perfect sympathy with the past of our buried forefathers as with the generation to come.”

— Vincent van Gogh

390. “No entanto, por menos que diga, eu os irrito e eles me irritam.”

— Vincent van Gogh

391. “People who do nothing but fall in love are perhaps more serious and saintly than those who sacrifice their love and their hearts to an idea.”

— Vincent van Gogh

392. “But I, for my part, am convinced that in this respect one can have faith in modern art. The fact that I have a definite belief about art makes me sure of what I want in my own work, and I shall try to reach it even at the risk of my own life.”

— Vincent van Gogh

393. “The rest certainly must seem damn bad.” And the days when I bring home a study I say to myself – If it was like this every day, we might be able to get on; but the days when you come back empty-handed, and eat and sleep and spend money all the same, you don’t think much of yourself, and you feel like a fool and a shirker and a good-for-nothing.”

— Vincent van Gogh

394. “In the first place, it pleased me enormously that Theo and Mr. Tersteeg have entered into business relations in order to make the work of the painters here who are called impressionists known in Holland too.”

— Vincent van Gogh

395. “Still, I went with Vincent a few times to listen to a Wagner concert before he left, and we both liked it very much. It still seems strange that he has gone, he has lately meant so much to me.”

— Vincent van Gogh

396. “Accustoming oneself to poverty, seeing how a soldier or a labourer lives and thrives in wind and weather, with ordinary people’s fare and dwelling, is just as practical as earning a few guilders more a week. After all, one is not in the world for one’s own comfort, and one does not need to be better off than one’s neighbour.”

— Vincent van Gogh

397. “You must not go there in too anemic or enervated a condition, if you set a value on coming out of it stronger. I do not consider it a great misfortune for you to be obliged to be a soldier, but rather as a very serious trial from which you will emerge – if you emerge at all – a very great artist.”

— Vincent van Gogh

398. “It must be good to die in the knowledge that one has done some truthful work and to know that, as a result, one will live on in the memory of at least a few and leave a good example for those who come after. A work that is good may not last for ever, but the thought expressed by it will, and the work itself will surely survive for a very long time, and those who come later can do no better than follow in the footsteps of such predecessors and copy their example.”

— Vincent van Gogh

399. “Because in a time of financial crisis like the present, money is what ammunition is to a soldier in a hostile country – don’t let’s waste our powder.”

— Vincent van Gogh

400. “But in the course of four months 250 fr. must be deducted for the payment of colours and rent; well, then my work is hampered and obstructed to such an extent that I am at my wit’s end, and I prefer to tell the fellows: Sell the whole lot! But let me work!”

— Vincent van Gogh