Frasi di Vincent Van Gogh: 33 frasi di saggezza e ispirazione sull'arte, il successo e la scoperta di sé

Vincent Van Gogh: 271 frasi 279 Mi piace

Vincent Van Gogh frasi celebri

“Prima sogno i miei dipinti, poi dipingo i miei sogni.”

Vincent Van Gogh

“I pescatori sanno che il mare è pericoloso e la tempesta terribile, ma non hanno mai trovato questi pericoli, una ragione sufficiente per restare a riva.”

Vincent Van Gogh

“La tristezza durerà per sempre.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Questa traduzione è in attesa di revisione. È corretto?

“Sii chiaramente consapevole delle stelle e dell'infinito in alto. Dopotutto, la vita sembra quasi incantata.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Questa traduzione è in attesa di revisione. È corretto?

“Cerco, mi sforzo, ci sono con tutto il cuore.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Questa traduzione è in attesa di revisione. È corretto?

“… e poi, ho natura, arte e poesia, e se ciò non bastasse, cosa basta?”

Vincent Van Gogh

Frasi sulla vita di Vincent Van Gogh

“C'è fannullone e fannullone. C'è chi è fannullone per pigrizia o per mollezza di carattere, per la bassezza della sua natura, e tu puoi prendermi per uno di quelli. Poi c'è l'altro tipo di fannullone, il fannullone per forza, che è roso intimamente da un grande desiderio di azione, che non fa nulla perché è nell'impossibilità di fare qualcosa, perché gli manca ciò che gli è necessario per produrre, perché è come in una prigione, chiuso in qualche cosa, perché la fatalità delle circostanze lo ha ridotto a tal punto; non sempre uno sa quello che potrebbe fare, ma lo sente d'istinto: eppure sono buono a qualcosa, sento in me una ragione d'essere! So che potrei essere un uomo completamente diverso! A cosa potrei essere utile, a cosa potrei servire? C'è qualcosa in me, che è dunque? Questo è un tipo tutto diverso di fannullone, se vuoi puoi considerarmi tale. Un uccello chiuso in gabbia in primavera sa perfettamente che c'è qualcosa per cui egli è adatto, sa benissimo che c'è qualcosa da fare, ma che non può fare: che cosa è? Non se lo ricorda bene, ha delle idee vaghe e dice a se stesso: "gli altri fanno il nido e i loro piccoli e allevano la covata", e batte la testa contro le sbarre della gabbia. E la gabbia rimane chiusa e lui è pazzo di dolore. "Ecco un fannullone" dice un altro uccello che passa di là, "quello è come uno che vive di rendita". Intanto il prigioniero continua a vivere e non muore, nulla traspare di quello che prova, sta bene e il raggio di sole riesce a rallegrarlo. Ma arriva il tempo della migrazione. Accessi di malinconia – ma i ragazzi che lo curano nella sua gabbia si dicono che ha tutto ciò che può desiderare – ma lui sta a guardare fuori il cielo turgido carico di tempesta, e sente in sé la rivolta contro la propria fatalità. "Io sono in gabbia, sono in prigione, e non mi manca dunque niente imbecilli? Ho tutto ciò che mi serve! Ah, di grazia, la libertà, essere un uccello come tutti gli altri!". Quel tipo di fannullone è come quell'uccello fannullone. E gli uomini si trovano spesso nell'impossibilità di fare qualcosa, prigionieri di non so quale gabbia orribile, orribile, spaventosamente orribile… Non si sa sempre riconoscere che cosa è che ti rinchiude, che ti mura vivo, che sembra sotterrarti, eppure si sentono non so quali sbarre, quali muri. Tutto ciò è fantasia, immaginazione? Non credo, e poi uno si chiede "Mio Dio, durerà molto, durerà sempre, durerà per l'eternità?"”

Vincent Van Gogh

Sai tu ciò che fa sparire questa prigione? È un affetto profondo, serio. Essere amici, essere fratelli, amare spalanca la prigione per potere sovrano, per grazia potente. Ma chi non riesce ad avere questo rimane chiuso nella morte. Ma dove rinasce la simpatia, lì rinasce anche la vita.
Origine: Da Lettere a Theo, Guanda, Parma 1984, pp. 87-88.

“Bisogna aver sempre presente la meta da raggiungere e che la vittoria ottenuta dopo un'intera vita di laboriosa fatica vale più di un facile successo. Chiunque viva sinceramente e affronti senza piegarsi dolori e delusioni è assai più degno di chi ha sempre avuto il vento favorevole, non conoscendo altro che una relativa prosperità.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Origine: Da una lettera al fratello Theo, 3 aprile 1878.

“Siamo tanto attaccati a questa vecchia vita perché accanto ai momenti di tristezza, abbiamo anche momenti di gioia in cui anima e cuore esultano – come l'allodola che non può fare a meno di cantare al mattino, anche se l'anima talvolta trema in noi, piena di timori.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Origine: Da una lettera al fratello Theo, 30 maggio 1877.

“Soffrire senza lamentarci è l'unica lezione che dobbiamo imparare in questa vita.”

Vincent Van Gogh

“Più divento dissipato, malato, vaso rotto, più io divento artista, creatore… con quanta minor fatica si sarebbe potuto vivere la vita, invece di fare dell'arte.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Origine: Da una lettera al fratello Theo, 29 luglio 1888; citato in Serena Zoli, Giovanni B. Cassano, E liberaci dal male oscuro, TEA, Milano, 2009, p. 478. ISBN 978-88-502-0209-6

“Una cosa resta – la fede – si sente istintivamente, ché moltissimo si cambia e che tutto si cambierà: siamo nell'ultimo quarto di un secolo che nuovamente finirà con una grandiosa rivoluzione. Ma anche supponendo che alla fine della nostra vita noi ne vedremo l'inizio, sicuramente non vedremo i tempi migliori dell'aria pura e del rinnovamento di tutta la società dopo questa grande tempesta.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh Frasi e Citazioni

“Faccio sempre ciò che non so fare, per imparare come va fatto.”

Vincent Van Gogh

“Uno può avere un focolare ardente nell'anima e tuttavia nessuno viene mai a sedervisi accanto. I passanti vedono solo un filo di fumo che si alza dal camino e continuano per la loro strada.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Anima

“Aspiro alle stelle che non posso raggiungere.”

Vincent Van Gogh libro Lettere a Theo

Lettere a Theo

Stella

“Così come in algebra due affermazioni false ne danno una vera, così spero che il prodotto dei miei insuccessi si concluda con un successo.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Successo

“Se senti una voce dentro di te che dice 'non puoi dipingere', allora a tutti i costi dipingi e quella voce verrà messa a tacere.”

Vincent Van Gogh

motivazionale

“Io penso di vedere qualcosa di più profondo, più infinito, più eterno dell'oceano nell'espressione degli occhi di un bambino piccolo quando si sveglia alla mattina e mormora o ride perché vede il sole splendere sulla sua culla.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Sole , Sui bambini

“Così il pennello sta alle mie dita come l'archetto al violino, e assolutamente per mio piacere.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Sul piacere

“Non c'è blu senza il giallo e senza l'arancione.”

Vincent Van Gogh

“Io penso spesso che la notte sia più viva e più riccamente colorata del giorno.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Notte

“Non posso cambiare il fatto che i miei quadri non vendono. Ma verrà il giorno in cui la gente riconoscerà che valgono più del valore dei colori usati nel quadro.”

Vincent Van Gogh

“Non bisogna giudicare il buon Dio da questo mondo, perché è uno schizzo che gli è venuto male.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Origine: Citato in Guido Almansi, Il filosofo portatile, TEA, Milano, 1991.

Su Dio , Sul mondo , il male

“Volevo uccidermi, ma ho fatto cilecca. Nel caso dovessi sopravvivere ci riproverò.”

Vincent Van Gogh

“Non c'è bisogno che un artista sia un prete o un fabbriciere, ma certo egli deve avere un cuore affettuoso per gli altri uomini.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Cuore , Sugli uomini

“Non è tanto il linguaggio del pittore che si deve sentire, quanto quello della natura.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Natura

Questa traduzione è in attesa di revisione. È corretto?

“Ho messo il cuore e l'anima nel mio lavoro, e ho perso la testa nel processo.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Anima , Cuore

“Ho dunque schizzato i dieci "Travaux des champs" di Millet e ne ho eseguito uno a fondo. Inoltre ho disegnato dall'incisione l'"Angelus" che mi hai mandato.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Origine: Da una lettera al fratello Theo, 7 settembre 1880; citato in Fischer 1975.

“E' nostro dovere cercare di ammirare e conoscere le cose per noi stessi piuttosto che insegnarle agli altri. Eppure le due cose possono coesistere.”

Vincent Van Gogh libro Lettere a Theo

libro Lettere a Theo

“Vedi, l’uomo non ha amico più fedele del suo dovere e benché a volte possa essere un rude e severo docente, finché si lavora a servizio del dovere non si diventa facilmente dei falliti.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Origine: Da Lettere a Theo (L’ Aia, giugno 1883) - Guanda, 2016.

“Se torni nello studio ti accorgerai subito, credo, che ho sempre avuto in mente il piano riguardante le figure di lavoratori in litografia, anche se non ne parlo tanto. Ho un seminatore, un mietitore, una lavandaia, una operaia di miniera, una sarta, uno che scava, una donna con la pala, l'orfana, un ragazzo con una carriola di letame e altro ancora.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Origine: Da una lettera al fratello Theo; citato in Fischer 1975.

Su Dio , Ragazza , Studia

Questa traduzione è in attesa di revisione. È corretto?

“Se senti una voce dentro di te che dice: "Non sei un pittore", allora con ogni mezzo dipingi, ragazzo, e quella voce sarà messa a tacere, ma solo lavorando. Colui che va alle tendenze e racconta i suoi problemi quando sente che perde parte della sua virilità, parte del meglio che c'è in lui; i tuoi amici possono essere solo quelli che lottano contro di loro, che aumentano la tua attività con il loro esempio di azione.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Problema , Ragazza

Questa traduzione è in attesa di revisione. È corretto?

“Cerco sempre di più di essere me stesso, preoccupandomi relativamente poco se le persone approvano o disapprovano.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Sulle persone

Vincent Van Gogh: Frasi in inglese

“It is hard, terribly hard, to keep on working when one does not sell, and one literally has to pay for one's colors from what would not be too much for eating, drinking and lodgings, calculated ever so strictly. And then, besides, the models... All the same they are building State museums, and the like, for hundreds of thousands, but meanwhile, the artists can go to the dogs.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter, from Antwerp, Belgium, Dec. 1885; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 438) p. 35
1880s, 1885

“May God give me the wisdom which I need and grant me what I so fervently desire, that is, to finish my studies as quickly as possible and he ordained, so that I can perform the practical duties of a clergyman.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

In a letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, 19 Nov. 1877; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 113), p. 18
as student, in Amsterdam, staying in the house of his uncle
1870s

“I have [drawings of] about twelve figures of diggers and men who are working in a potato field, and I wonder if I could not make something of it, you have still a few, for instance, a man who fills a bag with potatoes. Well, I do not know for sure, but sooner or later I shall accomplish that, for I looked at it so attentively this summer, and here in the dunes I could make a good study of the earth and the sky, and then boldly put in the figures.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in letter 169, from The Hague, January, 1882; as cited in Vincent van Gogh, Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, catalog-page: Dutch Period: - 4. Potato Diggers
1880s, 1882

“Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter tot Theo, from The Hague, Sunday, 18 March 1883; as cited in The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, Vol. 2 (1958) New York Graphic Society, p. 12
1880s, 1883

“If we study Japanese art, you see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent who spends his time how? In studying the distance between the earth and the moon? No. In studying the policy of Bismarck? No. He studies a single blade of grass..”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in Vincent's letter to brother Theo, from Arles, Sept. 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 542), p. 39
1880s, 1888

“letter after his third attack”

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Vincent Van Gogh

1880s, 1889

“I was certainly going the right way for a stroke when I left Paris. I paid for it nicely afterwards! When I stopped drinking, when I stopped smoking so much, when I began again to think instead of trying not to think - good Lord, the depression and the prostration of it! Work in these magnificent natural surroundings [of Arles ] has helped my morale.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, France, 4 May 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 481), p 24
1880s, 1888

“If, therefore, you've already considered that Signac and the others who are doing pointillism often make very beautiful things with it - Instead of running those things down, one [Bernhard] should respect them and speak of them sympathetically, especially when there's a falling out. Otherwise one becomes a narrow sectarian oneself, and the equivalent of those who think nothing of others and believe themselves to be the only righteous ones. This extends even to the academic painters, because take, for example, a painting by Fantin-Latour — and above all his entire oeuvre. Well then — there's someone who hasn't rebelled, and does that prevent him, that indefinable calm and righteousness that he has, from being one of the most independent characters in existence?”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in Vincent's letter to Emile Bernard, from Paris, about December 1887; from letter 575 - vangoghletters http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let575/letter.html]
1880s, 1887

“And it's certain that unexpected new ideas are beginning to emerge. That paintings are once again beginning to be painted in very different tone from a few years ago.
The last thing I made is a rather large study of an avenue of poplars with the yellow autumn leaves, where the sun makes glittering patches here and there on the fallen leaves on the ground, which are interspersed with the long shadows cast by the trunks. At the end of the road a peasant cottage, and the blue sky above it between the autumn leaves.
I think that in a year's time — having spent that year once again painting a great deal and constantly — I'll change my manner of painting and my colour a great deal, and that I'm likely to become slightly more sombre rather than lighter.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote from Vincent's letter to Theo van Gogh, from Nuenen, The Netherlands, on or about Saturday, 25 October 1884; from original text of letter 467 - vangoghletters online http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let467/letter.html
1880s, 1884

“Here, under a stronger sun, I have found true what Pissarro said, and what Gauguin wrote to me as well, the simplicity, the lack of color, the gravity of great sunlight effects.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, Oct. 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 555) p. 28
1880s, 1888

“About staying in the south, even if it's more expensive — Look, we love Japanese painting, we've experienced its influence — all the Impressionists have that in common — and we wouldn't go to Japan, in other words, to what is the equivalent of Japan, the south? So I believe that the future of the new art still lies in the south after all. But it's bad policy to live there alone when two or three could help each other to live on little.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

In a letter to brother Theo, from Arles, c. 5 June 1888, in 'Van Gogh's Letters', letter 620 http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let620/letter.html, Van Goghmuseum
Vincent was busy, trying to convince a. o. Paul Gauguin to come to Arles, and to settle there
1880s, 1888

“As well as the greatest optimist I see the lark soaring in the spring air, but I also see a young girl of about twenty, who might have been in good health, a victim to consumption, and who will perhaps drown herself before she dies of an illness. If one is always in respectable company among rather well-to-do bourgeois one does not notice this so much perhaps, but if one has dined for years on 'la vache enragee', as I did, one cannot deny that great misery is a fact that weighs down the scale.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Antwerp Belgium, Winter 1886; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 453), p. 38
1880s, 1886

“Of course I should be very happy to sell a drawing but I am happier still when a real artist like Weissenbruch says about an unsalable??? study or drawing: "That is true to nature, I could work from that myself."”

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Vincent Van Gogh

quote in his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, The Netherlands in Febr. 1882; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 20 (letter 177)
1880s, 1882

“As I feel a need to speak out frankly, I cannot hide from you that I am overcome by a feeling of great care, depression, a "je ne sais quoi" of discouragement and despair more than I can tell.
I take it so much to heart that I do not get on better with people in general; it quite worries me because on it depends so much my success in carrying out my work.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Drenthe, The Netherlands, Autumn 1883; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 328) p. 21
1880s, 1883

“I'd like you [Theo] to spend some time here, you'd feel it — after some time your vision changes, you see with a more Japanese eye, you feel colour differently. I'm also convinced that it's precisely through a long stay here that I'll bring out my personality. The Japanese [like a. o. Hokusai, admired by Vincent] draws quickly, very quickly, like a flash of lightning, because his nerves are finer, his feeling simpler. I've been here [Arles] only a few months but — tell me, in Paris would I have drawn in an hour the drawing of the boats?... Now this [sketch] was done without measuring, letting the pen go. So I tell myself that gradually the expenses will be balanced by work.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

In a letter to brother Theo, from Arles, c. 5 June 1888, in 'Van Gogh's Letters', letter 620 http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let620/letter.html, Van Goghmuseum
The Japanese artists with their colored woodblock-prints meant a great inspirations for several Paris' artists - they were extremely important for Vincent, these years
1880s, 1888

“This art that we are all working in, we feel it has a long future before it, and one must have some settled base, like steady people, and not like decadents. Here my life will become more and more like a Japanese painter's, living close to nature like a petty tradesman.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, Autumn 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 540), pp. 22-23
1880s, 1888

“To stroll on wharves, and in alleys and in streets and in the houses, waiting-rooms, even saloons, that is not a pleasant pastime unless for an artist. As such, one would rather be in the dirtiest place where there is something to draw, than at a tea party with charming ladies. Unless one wants to draw ladies, then a tea party is all right even for an artist.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

quote in his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, The Netherlands in Spring 1882; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 34 (letter 190)
1880s, 1882

“It is color, not locally true from the point of view of the stereoscopic realist, but color to suggest any emotion of an ardent temperament. When Paul Mantz saw at the exhibition the violent and inspired sketch of Delacroix…. the 'Barque of Christ' - he turned away from it exclaiming: 'I did not know that one could be so terrible with a little blue and green'. Hokusai wrings the same cry from you [Theo], but he does it by his line, his drawing, when you say in your letter - 'the waves are claws and the ship is caught in them'. Well, if you make the color exact or the drawing exact, it won't give you sensations like that.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, 8 September 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 533) pp. 32-33
1880s, 1888

“My dear Theo, Sincere wishes for your good health and serenity on your birthday. I would like to have sent you the painting of the potato eaters for this day, but although it's coming along well, it's not quite finished yet. Although I'll have painted the actual painting in a relatively short time, and largely from memory, it's taken a whole winter of painting studies of heads and hands. And as for the few days in which I've painted it now - it's consequently been a formidable fight, but one for which I have great enthusiasm. Although at times I feared that it wouldn't come off. But painting is also 'act and create.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, 30 April 1885, letter 497 - vangoghletters online http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let497/letter.html
Vincent refers to his famous painting 'Potato Eaters' https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Vincent_van_Gogh_-_The_potato_eaters_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
1880s, 1885

“I am sure you will like it, it is such a fine business [art-dealer].... I am so glad that we shall both be in the same profession [art dealing] and in the same firm”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Goupil and Co.
Quote in his letter to brother Theo from The Hague, The Netherlands (13 December 1872); as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 17 (letter 2)
Vincent's profession then was picture dealer at Goupil and Co., with branches a. o. in The Hague, London and Paris
1870s

“When I call myself a peasant painter, that is a real fact, and it will become more and more clear to you in the future, I feel at home there. By witnessing peasant life continually at all hours of the day I have become so absorbed in it that I hardly ever think of anything else.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo from Nuenen, The Netherlands, Summer 1885; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 400) p. 21
1880s, 1885

“I hope.... to paint some in a lighter gamut, more flesh and blood, but, at the same time, I am trying to get a still stronger soft soap and copper-like effect. In reality I daily see, in the gloomy huts, effects against the light or in the evening twilight.... which I compare to soft soap and brass color of a worn-out 10 centime piece.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Nuenen, The Netherlands, June 1885; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 410) p. 31
1880s, 1885

“Do you know what I long for sometimes? To make a trip to Brabant. I should love to draw the old churchyard at Nuenen, and the weavers. To make, for instance, during a month, studies of Brabant, and to come back [to The Hague] with a lot of them, for a large drawing of a peasant funeral for instance.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote of letter 295, from The Hague, 1883; as cited in Vincent van Gogh, Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, catalog-page: Dutch Period 2. - Weaver
1880s, 1883

“The thing has already taken form in my mind before I start it. The first attempts are absolutely unbearable. I say this because I want you to know that if you see something worthwhile in what I am doing, it is not by accident but because of real direction and purpose.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

As quoted in The Path of Least Resistance : Principles for Creating What You Want to Create (1984) by Robert Fritz, p. 181
Undated

“I am busy painting every day studies of the weavers here, which I think are technically better than the painted studies from Drenthe, which I sent you.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

1880s, 1884
Origine: Quote from Letter 355, from Nuenen The Netherlands, January 1884; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, page: Catalog: Dutch Period 2. - Weaver

“Certainly after all you are right, damn well right - even making allowance for hope, the thing is to accept the probably disastrous reality. I am hoping to throw myself once again wholly in my work which has got behind hand.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, France, 29 March 1889; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 582), p 25
1880s, 1889

“And my intention is to try to form a collection of many such things, which would not be quite unworthy of the title 'heads of the people.' By working hard, boy, I hope to succeed in making something good. It isn't there yet, but I aim at it, and struggle for it. I want something serious, - some thing fresh - something with soul in it! Forward - forward”

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Vincent Van Gogh

quote in his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, The Netherlands, 3 Jan. 1883; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 257), pp. 20-21
1880s, 1883

“If I should find something it will probably be a position between clergy man and missionary in the suburbs of London among the working people. Do not speak to anybody about it yet.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

In his letter to brother Theo from Welwyn, England, 17 June 1876; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 17 (letter 69)
as school teacher and lay preacher near London
1870s

“.. the best way to know God is to love many things. Love a friend, a wife, something, whatever you like... But one must love with a lofty and serious intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence… That leads to God, that leads to unwavering faith... To give you an example: someone loves Rembrandt, but seriously, - that man will know that there is a God, he will surely believe it... To try to understand the real significance, of what the great artists, the serious masters, tell us in their masterpieces, that leads to God..”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Cuesmes, Belgium July 1880; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 133) p. 39
1880s, 1880

“I fear that in a few years there may be a kind of 'panic', in this form: 'since Millet' we have sunk very low — the word decadence, now whispered or pronounced in veiled terms (see Herkomer), will then sound like an alarm bell. Many, like I myself, now keep quiet, because they already have the reputation of being awkward customers,5 and talking about it doesn't help. That — namely, talking — isn't what one needs to do — one must work, though with sorrow in the heart. Those who later cry out the loudest about decadence will themselves belong to it the most. I repeat: by this shall ye know them, [from: Matt. 7:16. ] by their work, and it won't be the most eloquent who say the truest things. See Millet himself, see Herkomer, they're certainly not orators, and speak almost reluctantly.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

In his letter to Theo, from The Hague, 5 Nov. 1882 - original manuscript of letter no. 280 - at Van Gogh Museum, location Amsterdam - inv. b263 a-b V/1962, http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let280/letter.html
1880s, 1882