Source: The Ethics of Freedom (1973 - 1974), p. 44
“The work is an absolute necessity for me.”
Quote in Vincent's letter to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 3 June 1883; as cited in Stranger on the Earth : A Psychological Biography of Vincent Van Gogh (1996) by Albert J. Lubin, p. 22
Variant translation: For me, the work is an absolute necessity. I cannot put it off; I don't care for anything else; that is to say, the pleasure in something else ceases at once, and I become melancholy when I cannot go on with my work. I feel then as the weaver does when he sees that his threads have got tangled, the pattern he had on the loom has gone to the deuce, and his exertion and deliberation are lost.
As quoted in Dear Theo: the Autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh (1995) edited by Irving Stone and Jean Stone, p. 204
1880s, 1883
Context: The work is an absolute necessity for me. I can't put it off, I don't care for anything but the work; that is to say, the pleasure in something else ceases at once and I become melancholy when I can't go on with my work. Then I feel like a weaver who sees that his threads are tangled, and the pattern he had on the loom is gone to hell, and all his thought and exertion is lost.
“A planet full of people meant nothing against the dictates of economic necessity!”
The Currents of Space (1952)
General sources
“Necessity makes even the timid brave.”
Necessitas etiam timidos fortes facit.
Source: Bellum Catilinae (c. 44 BC), Chapter LVII
“Not even the gods fight against necessity.”
Quoted by Plato in the dialogue Protagoras, 345d http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0177%3Atext%3DProt.%3Asection%3D345d (Simonides Fr. 37.1.27 ff.).
Variant translations:
The gods do not fight against necessity.
Not even the gods war against necessity.
I praise and love all men who do no sin willingly; but with necessity even the gods do not contend.
Thus It Is, 1989, p. 110
As of a Trumpet, On Eagle's Wings, Thus It Is
“Even the Gods cannot strive against necessity.”
As quoted by Plato, Protagoras, 345d, and by Diogenes Laërtius, i. 77.
“A work of art is good if it has grown out of necessity.”
Letter One (17 February 1903)
Source: Letters to a Young Poet (1934)
“the need for stupefying work where it is no longer a real necessity.”
Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), p. 7
“How dismal the necessity of birth! how miserable the necessity of living! how hard the necessity of death!”
O neccessitas abiecta nascendi, vivendi misera dura moriendi.
Lib. 8, Ep. 11, sect. 4; vol. 2, p. 463.
Epistularum
