Vincent Van Gogh citations

Page 4

“La tristesse durera toujours.”

“Dans chaque vie où de la pluie doit tomber, quelques jours seront sombres et lugubres – c'est vrai, il ne peut en aller autrement, et pourtant je me demande si le nombre de jours sombres et lugubres peut parfois devenir trop grand? La lutte intérieure de Van Gogh: Sa vie, son œuvre et sa maladie mentale - Liesbeth Heenk”

“[…] quand on se révèle capable en une chose et l'on comprend bien une question, on peut être sûr d'en comprendre beaucoup d'autres.”

“Puis il y a l'autre fainéant, le fainéant bien malgré lui, qui est rongé intérieurement par un grand désir d'action, qui ne fait rien, parce qu'il est dans l'impossibilité de rien faire, puisqu'il est comme en prison dans quelque chose, parce qu'il n'a pas ce qui lui faudrait pour être productif, parce que la fatalité des circonstances le réduit à ce point; un tel ne sait pas toujours lui-même ce qu'il pourrait faire, mais il sent par instinct : pourtant je suis bon à quelque chose, je me sens une raison d'être! Je sais que je pourrais être un tout autre homme! A quoi donc pourrais-je être utile, à quoi pourrais-je servir? Il y a quelque chose au-dedans de moi, qu'est-ce que c'est donc?”

“Les principes ne sont bons que lorsqu'ils engendrent des actes; je trouve bon de réfléchir et de se montrer consciencieux, parce que cela accroît l'activité d'un homme et fait un tout de ses divers actes.”

“‘Tu n’as peut-être jamais pensé á ce que c’est la patrie, reprit-il, en me posant une main sur l’épaule; c’est tout ce qui t’entoure, tout ce qui t’a élevé et nourri, tout ce que tu as aimé. Cette campagne que tu vois, ces maisons, ces arbres, ces jeunes filles qui passent lá en riant, c’est la patrie! Les lois qui te protégent, le pain qui paye ton travail, les paroles que tu échanges, la joie et la tristesse qui te viennent des hommes et des choses parmi lesquels tu vis, c’est la patrie! La petite chambre oú tu as autrefois vu ta mere, les souvenirs qu’elle t’a laisses, la terre oú elle repose, c’est la patrie! Tu la vois, tu la respires partout! Figure toi, tes droits et tes devoirs, tes affections et tes besoins, tes souvenirs et ta reconnaissance, réunis tout ça sous un seul nom et ce nom sera la patrie.”

“Que la tempête se lève, que la nuit tombe; qu'est-ce qui est le plus redoutable, le danger ou la peur du danger? Je préfère la réalité, le danger même.”

“[…] n'oublions pas que les petites émotions sont les grands capitaines de nos vies et qu'à celles-ci nous obéissons sans le savoir.”

“Nombreux sont les peintres qui ont peur d'une toile blanche, mais une toile blanche a peur du véritable peintre passionné qui ose — et qui a su vaincre la fascination de ce tu n'es capable de rien.”

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

“What color is in a picture, enthusiasm is in life.”

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

“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.”

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

“We spent our whole lives in unconsous excercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of words”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“So please don't think that I am renouncing anything, I am reasonably faithful in my unfaithfulness and though I have changed, I am the same, and 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, how can I become more knowledgeable and study some subject or other in depth?”

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

“We are surrounded by poetry on all sides…”

“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.”

“If I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it - keep going, keep going come what may.”

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

“… to look at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots of a map representing towns and villages. Why, I ask myself, should the shining dots of the sky not be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France?”

“Both she and I have grief enough and trouble enough, but as for regrets – neither of us have any.”

“An artist needn't be a clergyman or a church warden, but he must have a warm heart for his fellow men”

“It's better to have a gay life of it than to commit suicide.”

“The more ugly, old, nasty, ill, and poor I become the more I want to get my own back by producing vibrant, well-arranged, radiant colour.”

“To do good work one must eat well, be well housed, have one's fling from time to time, smoke one's pipe, and drink one's coffee in peace”

“It is not only by one's impulses that one achieves greatness, but also by patiently filing away the steel wall that separates what one feels from what one is capable of doing.”

“I take great care of myself by carefully shutting myself away”

“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.”

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

“That I was not suited to commerce or academic study in no way proves that I should also be unfit to be a painter.”

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

“Sometimes, dear brother, I know so well what I want. I am quite able to do without God, both in my life and in my painting, but what I cannot do without, unwell as I am, is something greater than myself, which is my life, the power to create.”

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