Vincent Van Gogh Quotes

Vincent Van Gogh's collection of the most iconic quotations and thoughts.


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.


For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.


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


Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.


The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.


I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed.


I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.


I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.


I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.


What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?


About Vincent Van Gogh:
was a major Post-Impressionist painter. He was a Dutch artist whose work had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. His output includes portraits, self portraits, landscapes, and still lifes of cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers. Van Gogh drew as a child but did not paint until his late twenties; he completed many of his best-known works during the last two years of his life. In just over a decade, he produced more than 2,100 artworks, including 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings, sketches and prints.

Van Gogh was born to upper middle class parents and spent his early adulthood working for a firm of art dealers. He traveled between The Hague, London and Paris, after which he taught in England at Isleworth and Ramsgate. He was deeply religious as a younger man and aspired to be a pastor. From 1879 he worked as a missionary in a mining region in Belgium, where he began to sketch people from the local community. In 1885 he painted The Potato Eaters, considered his first major work. His palette then consisted mainly of somber earth tones and showed no sign of the vivid coloration that distinguished his later paintings. In March 1886, he moved to Paris and discovered the French Impressionists. Later, he moved to the south of France and was influenced by the strong sunlight he found there. His paintings grew brighter in color, and he developed the unique and highly recognizable style that became fully realized during his stay in Arles in 1888.