Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch post-impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art.
Van Gogh was unsuccessful during his lifetime, and was considered a madman and a failure. He became famous after his suicide, and exists in the public imagination as the quintessential misunderstood genius, the artist “where discourses on madness and creativity converge”. His reputation began to grow in the early 20th century as elements of his painting style came to be incorporated by the Fauves and German Expressionists.
He attained widespread critical, commercial and popular success over the ensuing decades. Van Gogh’s works are among the world’s most expensive paintings to have ever sold at auction, and his legacy is honoured by a museum in his name, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which holds the world’s largest collection of his paintings and drawings.
Some of the best quotes from Vincent van Gogh are listed below.
- “Admire more. Most people don’t admire enough.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “As practice makes perfect, I cannot but make progress; each drawing one makes, each study one paints, is a step forward.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “By working hard, old man, I hope to make something good one day. I haven’t yet, but I am pursuing it and fighting for it…” – Vincent van Gogh
- “Close friends are truly life’s treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “Conscience is a man’s compass.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “For the great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?” – Vincent van Gogh
- “How difficult it is to be simple.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “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.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “I tell you, if one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of going wrong, one must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then. Many people think that they will become good just by doing no harm — but that’s a lie, and you yourself used to call it that. That way lies stagnation, mediocrity.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “I would rather die of passion than of boredom.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “I’ve just kept on ceaselessly painting in order to learn painting.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “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.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “If you end up falling in love with someone, it’s because of them. If you end up hating someone, it’s because of you.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “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.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “Love is eternal – the aspect may change, but not the essence. There is the same difference in a person before and after he is in love as there is in an unlighted lamp and one that is burning. The lamp was there and was a good lamp, but now it is shed.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “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.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “Occasionally, in times of worry, I’ve longed to be stylish, but on second thought I say no—just let me be myself—and express rough, yet true things with rough workmanship.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “One must spoil as many canvases as one succeeds with.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “One must work and dare if one really wants to live.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “So often, a visit to a bookshop has cheered me, and reminded me that there are good things in the world.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “Success is sometimes the outcome of a whole string of failures.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “The beginning is perhaps more difficult than anything else, but keep heart, it will turn out all right.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “The best way to know God is to love many things.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “The victory one would gain after a whole life of work and effort is better than one that is gained sooner.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “The way to know life is to love many things.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” – Vincent van Gogh
- “When we are working at a difficult task and strive after a good thing, we are fighting a righteous battle, the direct reward of which is that we are kept from much evil. As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “Your profession is not what brings home your weekly paycheck, your profession is what you’re put here on earth to do, with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling.” – Vincent van Gogh
