Vincent van Gogh Quotes

On this page, you will find famous quotes by Vincent van Gogh. Beautiful, inspiring quotes that reveal much about the man behind the paintings.

But did Van Gogh actually write these quotes literally in his letters? And in what context?



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Arles, 8 September 1888:

"Well, to the great delight of the lodging-house keeper, the postman whom I’ve already painted, the prowling night-visitors and myself, for 3 nights I stayed up to paint, going to bed during the day. It often seems to me that the night is much more alive and richly coloured than the day. Now as for recovering the money paid to the landlord through my painting, I’m not making a point of it, because the painting is one of the ugliest I’ve done. It’s the equivalent, though different, of the potato eaters."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let676/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Sunday, 23 April 1882:

"Make them understand this, because they don’t know it, they take me to be insensitive and indifferent. And by doing so you’ll be doing me a big favour, and I believe that everything can be settled in this way. I wish they’d simply accept me as I am. Mauve has been good to me and has given me considerable and unstinting help, but – it lasted a fortnight. That's too short."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let220/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Sunday, 7 May 1882:

"Mauve blames me for saying, I’m an artist – which I won’t take back, because those words naturally imply always seeking without ever fully finding. It’s the exact opposite of saying, ‘I know it already, I’ve already found it’. To the best of my knowledge, those words mean ‘I seek, I pursue, my heart is in it’."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let224/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Nieuw-Amsterdam, Sunday, 28 October 1883:

"If something in you yourself says ‘you aren’t a painter’ — IT’S THEN THAT YOU SHOULD PAINT, old chap, and that voice will be silenced too, but precisely because of that."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let400/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Arles, Tuesday, 22 January 1889:

"You know that Jeannin has the peony, Quost has the hollyhock, but I have the sunflower, in a way. And all in all it will give me pleasure to continue the exchanges with Gauguin, even if sometimes it costs me dear too."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let741/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Cuesmes, between about Tuesday, 22 and Thursday, 24 June 1880

"Such a person doesn’t always know himself what he could do, but he feels by instinct, I’m good for something, even so! I feel I have a raison d’être! I know that I could be a quite different man! For what then could I be of use, for what could I serve! There’s something within me, so what is it! That’s an entirely different idler; you may, if you think fit, take me for such a one."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let155/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, Monday, 14 August 1882:

"I also don’t think that it would be a hindrance if my health let me down on occasion. As far as I can make out, it isn’t the worst painters who can’t work for a week or a fortnight now and then. Sometimes the reason for this is that they’re the very ones who ‘put their heart and soul into it’, as Millet says. That doesn’t matter, and in my view one shouldn’t spare oneself when it comes to the point. One may be exhausted for a while, but one recovers, and the advantage is that one has gathered in one’s studies, just like the farmer does his corn or hay."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let257/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, Wednesday, 3 January 1883

"Through working hard, old chap, I hope to make something good one day. I haven’t got it yet, but I’m hunting it and fighting for it, I want something serious, something fresh — something with soul in it! Onward, onward."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let298/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Nuenen, Thursday, 2 October 1884:

"Just a way of deadening oneself — the other muttered. ‘Ah, well! I prefer to deaden myself. To die for the sake of dying — i prefer to die of passion than to die of boredom!’"

A famous Van Gogh quote? Wel.. no, Vincent van Gogh actually quoted Octave Mouret here. :)

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let464/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Arles, Tuesday, 18 September 1888:

"You’re kind to painters, and be sure that the more I think about it the more I feel that there’s nothing more genuinely artistic than to love people."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let682/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, Wednesday, 26 July 1882:

"But, again, anyone who works with love and with intelligence has a kind of armour against people’s opinion in the sincerity of his love for nature and art. Nature is severe and hard, so to speak, but never deceives and always helps you to go forward."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let251/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 16 May 1882:

"The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm fearsome, but could never see that the dangers were a reason to continue strolling on the beach. They leave that wisdom to those to whom it appeals. When the storm comes — when night falls — what’s worse: the danger or the fear of danger? Give me reality, the danger itself."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let228/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, London, beginning of January 1874:

"Always continue walking a lot and loving nature, for that’s the real way to learn to understand art better and better. Painters understand nature and love it, and teach us to see."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let017/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Friday, 21 July 1882:

"Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let249/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Horace Mann Livens, Paris, September or October 1886:

"Anyone who has a solid position elsewhere, let him stay where he is but for adventurers as myself I think they lose nothing in risking more. Especially as in my case I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate and feeling nowhere so much myself a stranger as in my family and country."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let569/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Arles, Tuesday, 21 or Wednesday, 22 August 1888

"So the last one is light on light, and will be the best, I hope. I’ll probably not stop there. In the hope of living in a studio of our own with Gauguin, I’d like to do a decoration for the studio. Nothing but large Sunflowers."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let666/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, Saturday, 9 September 1882:

"I have a host of sketches by English artists from Ireland — I think the neighbourhood I’m writing about probably has much in common with an Irish town. I’m doing my very best to put all my energy into it, for I long so much to make beautiful things. But beautiful things require effort — and disappointment and perseverance."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let261/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, Sunday, 22 October 1882:

"For the great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let274/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Arles, Saturday, 26 May 1888:

"What’s always urgent is to draw, and whether it’s done directly with a brush, or with something else, such as a pen, you never do enough. I’m trying now to exaggerate the essence of things, and to deliberately leave vague what’s commonplace."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let613/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Emile Bernard, Arles, on or about Tuesday, 21 August 1888:

"How I’d like to spend these present days in Pont-Aven, but anyway, I console myself by reconsidering the sunflowers."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let665/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard, Etten, Wednesday, 2 November 1881:

"That this awareness of my own fallibility will prevent me from making many mistakes doesn’t alter the fact that I’m bound to make a great many mistakes anyway. But if we fall, we get up again!"

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let178/letter.html

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Arles, Friday, 4 May 1888:

"As for me, I’ll work, and here and there some of my work will last — but what Claude Monet is in landscape, the same thing in figure painting — who’s going to do that? Yet like me you must feel it’s in the air. Rodin? Rodin doesn’t do colour — it’s not him. But the painter of the future is a colourist such as there hasn’t been before."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let604/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, London, beginning of January 1874:

"Things are going well for me here, I have a wonderful home and it’s a great pleasure for me to observe London and the English way of life and the English themselves, and I also have nature and art and poetry, and if that isn’t enough, what is?"

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let017/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Willemien van Gogh, Paris, late October 1887:

"And searching with good intentions in the books of which it is said they are a light in the darkness, with the best will in the world we find precious little certain at all and not always satisfaction to comfort us personally. And the diseases from which we civilized people suffer the most are melancholia and pessimism."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let574/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh Antwerp, Sunday, 14 February 1886

"And in relationships with women one learns so much specifically about art. Pity that as one learns by degrees, so by degrees one ceases to be young. But were that not so, life would be too good."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let562/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Nuenen, on or about Monday, 26 January 1885:

"If I make better work later, I still won’t work otherwise than now; I mean it will be the same apple only riper — I myself won’t turn from what I’ve thought from the start. And this is why I say for my part, if I’m no good now, I won’t be any good later either — but if later, then now too. For wheat is wheat, even if it looks like grass at first to townsfolk — and the other way round too."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let480/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Paul Gauguin, Arles, Monday, 21 January 1889"

"And I believe that if one placed this canvas just as it is in a boat, even one of Icelandic fishermen, there would be some who would feel the lullaby in it. Ah! my dear friend, to make of painting what the music of Berlioz and Wagner has been before us... a consolatory art for distressed hearts! There are as yet only a few who feel it as you and I do!!!"

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let739/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Cuesmes, between about Monday, 11 and Thursday, 14 August 1879:

"Like everyone else, I have need of relationships of friendship or affection or trusting companionship, and am not like a street pump or lamp-post, whether of stone or iron, so that I can’t do without them without perceiving an emptiness and feeling their lack, like any other generally civilized and highly respectable man — and I tell you these things to let you know what a salutary effect your visit had on me."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let154/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Friday, 21 July 1882:

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let249/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, between about Wednesday, 13 and about Monday, 18 December 1882:

"And so, as against a feeling of dejection, there’s the fact that it’s a delight to work on something that becomes more interesting the deeper you get into it."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let294/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Arles, Monday, 9 or Tuesday, 10 July 1888:

"In the life of the painter, death may perhaps not be the most difficult thing. For myself, I declare I don’t know anything about it. But the sight of the stars always makes me dream in as simple a way as the black spots on the map, representing towns and villages, make me dream."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let638/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, London, beginning of January 1874:

"How I’d like to talk to you about art again, but now we can only write to each other about it often; find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let017/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, Sunday, 18 March 1883:

"It seemed to you perhaps as if the sun shone brighter and everything had acquired a new charm. At any rate, I believe this is always the effect of a serious love, and that’s a delightful thing. And I believe those who say that one doesn’t think clearly then are mistaken, for it’s then that one thinks very clearly and does more than otherwise. And love is something eternal, it changes its aspect but not its foundation."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let330/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Arles, Thursday, 23 or Friday, 24 August 1888:

"As long as we were preparing the way for richer lives for the painters who will walk in our footsteps, that would already be something."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let668/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Arles, Monday, 9 or Tuesday, 10 July 1888:

"Just as we take the train to go to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to go to a star. What’s certainly true in this argument is that while alive, we cannot go to a star, any more than once dead we’d be able to take the train. So it seems to me not impossible that cholera, the stone, consumption, cancer are celestial means of locomotion, just as steamboats, omnibuses and the railway are terrestrial ones."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let638/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, Thursday, 29 December 1881:

"I don’t want to consider it a misfortune that it’s turned out this way, on the contrary, despite all the emotion I feel a certain calm. There is safety in the midst of danger. What would life be if we didn’t dare to take things in hand?"

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let194/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Arles, 8 September 1888:

"I’m not making a point of it, because the painting is one of the ugliest I’ve done. It’s the equivalent, though different, of the potato eaters. I’ve tried to express the terrible human passions with the red and the green."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let676/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Anna van Gogh and Willemien van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, between about Thursday, 10 and Monday, 14 July 1890:

"But precisely for one’s health, as you say — it’s very necessary to work in the garden and to see the flowers growing."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let899/letter.html



Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Arles, Tuesday, 25 September 1888:

"I have a terrible clarity of mind at times, when nature is so lovely these days, and then I’m no longer aware of myself and the painting comes to me as if in a dream."

https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let687/letter.html

Van Gogh's letters

Vincent van Gogh is primarily known for his paintings, which are displayed in the world's greatest museums. By reading his letters, you will likely gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of his art.

Van Gogh's famous quotes provide an accessible way to engage with his correspondence and be drawn into his extraordinary life.

Credits

The original letters of Vincent van Gogh are preserved and made accessible thanks to the Van Gogh Museum in collaboration with the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands. The complete collection, including translations and annotations, can be explored at vangoghletters.org.

We extend our gratitude to the Van Gogh Museum for their dedication to preserving and sharing Vincent van Gogh’s correspondence, offering invaluable insights into his life, thoughts, and artistic journey.

Commission a hand-painted reproduction

Have you come across a painting that holds extra meaning after reading about it in Van Gogh’s letters? We would love to recreate it for you with the same passion that Van Gogh poured into creating his masterpieces.

Follow in Van Gogh's Footsteps

When you visit the actual locations that Van Gogh painted you will discover more about this remarkable person. What emotions did Van Gogh's surroundings evoke that he expressed so beautifully in his art?

May 13th 2022: Follow in Van Gogh’s footsteps in the South of France
July 11th 2022: Follow in Van Gogh’s footsteps in Nuenen
July 31st 2023: Follow in Van Gogh’s footsteps in Auvers-sûr-Oise
December 28th 2023: Follow in Van Gogh’s footsteps in Drenthe
November 21st 2024: Follow in Van Gogh’s footsteps in the Borinage