200 Best Vincent Van Gogh Quotes Of All Time

Here we have compiled a list of 200 best and famous quotes by Vincent Van Gogh about passion, art, nature, life, love, God, stars, and inspirational sayings.

Vincent Van Gogh was one of the most famous Dutch painters. His artwork has been admired by people worldwide, with paintings like Starry Night and Sunflowers being recognized in countries outside of Holland.

Though Vincent Van Gogh only sold one painting during his lifetime, he is still considered one of the most well-known artists in history. Despite never selling a single piece while living as an artist, it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t know about Vincent Van Gogh today!

He attempted suicide in 1889 after having become infatuated with a prostitute named Sien Hoornik. He had not sold anything or received any recognition for all that he accomplished as an artist up until that point. However, despite these troubles, we have come to know him by today; Gogh lived only 37 years while creating over 600 paintings during his lifetime.

So, let’s begin uncovering these 200 best and famous quotes by Vincent Van Gogh on various topics mentioned above. We hope you’ll fascinate reading these amazing sayings by this incredible personality.

Vincent Van Gogh Inspirational Quotes

“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Everywhere we look, complex magic of nature blazes before our eyes.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Success is sometimes the outcome of a whole string of failures.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Man is not on the earth solely for his own happiness. He is there to realize great things for humanity.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Don’t lose heart if it’s very difficult at times; everything will come out all right, and nobody can, in the beginning, do as he wishes.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove.” — Vincent van Gogh
“If I succeed in putting some warmth and love into the work, then it will find friends. Carrying on working is the.” — 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
“Conscience is a man’s compass, and though the needle sometimes deviates, though one often perceives irregularities in directing one’s course by it, still one must try to follow its direction.” — Vincent van Gogh
“For loneliness, worries, difficulties, the unsatisfied need for kindness and sympathy – that is what is hard to bear…” — Vincent van Gogh
“You have first to experience what you want to express.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I believe it is one’s duty to paint the rich and magnificent aspects of nature. We need gaiety and happiness, hope and love.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I must continue to follow the path I take now. If I do nothing, if I study nothing, if I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it – keep going, keep going come what may.” — Vincent van Gogh
“If I did not succeed, I still thought that what I had worked on would be continued. Not immediately. But there are others who believe in things that are true.” — Vincent van Gogh
“A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.” — 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
“The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The more ugly, old, nasty, ill, and poor I become, the more I want to get my own back by producing vibrant, well-arranged, radiant color.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I would like to leave this world and never return. I severed my ear, but how I wish that I had severed my heart. I shall never amount to anything.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I take great care of myself by carefully shutting myself away.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Whatever plan one makes, there is a hidden difficulty somewhere.” — Vincent van Gogh
“There are so many people, especially among our comrades, who imagine that words are nothing – on the contrary, isn’t it true that saying a thing well is as interesting and as difficult as painting it?” — Vincent van Gogh
“It is with the reading of books the same as with looking at pictures; one must, without doubt, without hesitations, with assurance, admire what is beautiful.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The only thing to do is to go one’s own way, to try one’s best, to make the thing live.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The beginning is perhaps more difficult than anything else, but keep heart, it will turn out all right.” — Vincent van Gogh
“One should arrive at leading one’s conscience to a state of development so that it becomes the voice of a better and higher self, of which the ordinary self is a servant.” — Vincent van Gogh
“It is not only by one’s impulses that one achieves greatness but also by patiently filing away the steel wall that separates what one feels from what one is capable of doing.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I believe that one thinks much more soundly if the thoughts arise from direct contact with things than if one looks at things with the aim of finding this or that in them.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I have walked the earth for thirty years and, out of gratitude, want to leave some souvenir.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and, in its depths, it has its pearls too.” — Vincent van Gogh
“If one hasn’t a horse, one is one’s own horse.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Seek only light and freedom and do not immerse yourself too deeply in the worldly mire.” — Vincent van Gogh
“But you people do not understand me, and I am afraid you never will.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Conscience is a man’s compass.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.” — Vincent van Gogh
“In spite of everything, I shall rise again.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I wish they would take me as I am.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I long so much to make beautiful things. But beautiful things require effort and disappointment and perseverance.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I am no friend of present-day Christianity, though its Founder was sublime.” — 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
“But for one’s health as you say, it is very necessary to work in the garden and see the flowers growing.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Doing little things well is a step toward doing big things better.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The sunflower is mine, in a way.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I see before me, I make an arbitrary use of color to express myself more forcefully.” — Vincent van Gogh
“It is a pity that, as one gradually gains experience, one loses one’s youth.” — 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
“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
“There is peace even in the storm.” — 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
“Find things beautiful as much as you can; most people find too little beautiful.” — Vincent van Gogh
“How rich art is, if one can only remember what one has seen, one is never empty of thoughts or truly lonely, never alone.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The diseases that we civilized people labor under most are melancholy and pessimism.” — 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
“I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” — Vincent van Gogh
“One can never study nature too much and too hard.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I would rather die of passion than of boredom.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The sadness will last forever.” — Vincent van Gogh
“To do good work, one must eat well, be well housed, have one’s fling from time to time, smoke one’s pipe, and drink one’s coffee in peace.” — Vincent van Gogh
“If the storm within gets too loud, I take a glass too much to stun myself.” — Vincent van Gogh
“We are having wind and rain here, and I am very glad not to be alone. I work from memory on bad days, and that would not do if I were alone.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Still, there is a calm, pure harmony, and music inside of me.” — Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh Quotes About Passion & Art

“I am a man of passions, capable of and subject to doing more or less foolish things- which I happen to regret, more or less, afterwards.” — Vincent van Gogh
“One must never let the fire go out in one’s soul, but keep it burning.” — Vincent van Gogh
“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.”—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
“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.” — Vincent van Gogh
“What preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way?” — Vincent van Gogh
“I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process.” — 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
“It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I tried to express through red and green the terrible passions of humanity.” — Vincent van Gogh
“But on the road that I’m on, I must continue; if I do nothing, if I don’t study, if I don’t keep on trying, then I’m lost, then woe betide me. That’s how I see this, to keep on, keep on, that’s what’s needed.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I felt my energy return, and that I said to myself, in any event, I’ll recover from it, I’ll pick up the pencil that I put down in my great discouragement, and I’ll get back to drawing, and from then on, it seems to me, everything has changed for me.” — Vincent van Gogh
“To die for the sake of dying – I prefer to die of passion than to die of boredom!” — Vincent van Gogh
“I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I shouldn’t precisely have chosen madness if there had been any choice, but once such a thing has taken hold of you, you can’t very well get out of it.” — Vincent van Gogh
“One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul, and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Rembrandt is so deeply mysterious that he says things for which there are no words in any language.” — Vincent van Gogh
“People are often unable to do anything, imprisoned as they are in, I don’t know what kind of terrible, terrible, oh such terrible cage.” — Vincent van Gogh
“For me, work is an absolute necessity; indeed I can’t really drag it out, I take no more pleasure in anything than in work, that’s to say, pleasure in other things stops immediately, and I become melancholy if I can’t get on with the work.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I want to get to the point where people say of my work, that man feels deeply.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The large majority of people are asleep and do not wish to wake up.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say “he feels deeply, he feels tenderly”.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Drawing is the root of everything, and the time spent on that is actually all profit.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I dream my painting, and I paint my dream.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The Mediterranean has the color of mackerel, changeable, I mean. You don’t always know if it is green or violet, you can’t even say it’s blue, because the next moment the changing reflection has taken on a tint of rose or gray.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Benjamin Murphy is the best artist since sliced bread.” — Vincent van Gogh
“To try to understand the real significance of what the great artists, the serious masters, tell us in their masterpieces, that leads to God; one man wrote or told it in a book; another, in a picture.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Accurate drawing, accurate color, is perhaps not the essential thing to aim at, because the reflection of reality in a mirror if it could be caught, color and all, would not be a picture at all, no more than a photograph.” — Vincent van Gogh
“My sketchbook is a witness of what I am experiencing, scribbling things whenever they happen.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerizes some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves.” — Vincent van Gogh
“One can speak poetry just by arranging colors well, just as one can say comforting things in music.” — Vincent van Gogh
“You can’t be at the pole and the equator at the same time. You must choose your own line, as I hope to do, and it will probably be color.” — Vincent van Gogh
“An artist need not be a minister or a collector in church, but he must have a warm heart for people, and I find it a noble thing that, for example, no winter passed without The Graphic doing something to keep alive sympathy for the poor.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I lost my job as an art salesman. It was the customer’s fault. He wanted to buy the wrong paintings.” — Vincent van Gogh
“There are colors which cause each other to shine brilliantly, which form a couple which complete each other like man and woman.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Painting it was hard graft. There are one and a half large tubes of white in the ground – yet that ground is very dark…” — Vincent van Gogh
“Art is but imitation of nature.” — Vincent van Gogh
“It seems to me it’s a painter’s duty to try to put an idea into his work.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Oh! I must somehow manage to do a figure in a few strokes.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I am astonished at the high prices paid for works by painters who are dead, prices none of them could expect when they were alive. It is a kind of tulip trade, in which living painters suffer but do not profit.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and continuous observations. By persistent, I mean not only continuous work but also not giving up your opinion at the bidding of such and such a person.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Drawing is the root of everything.” — Vincent van Gogh
“There is a sun, a light that for want of another word I can only call yellow, pale Sulphur yellow, pale golden citron. How lovely yellow is!” — Vincent van Gogh
“Art demands constant observation.” — Vincent van Gogh
“There is no blue without yellow and without orange.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The laws of color are unutterably beautiful, just because they are not accidental.” — Vincent van Gogh
“No blue without yellow and without orange, and if you do blue, then do yellow and orange as well, surely.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The only time I feel alive is when I’m painting.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The uglier, older, meaner, iller, poorer I get, the more I wish to take my revenge by doing brilliant color, well-arranged, resplendent.” — 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
“One of the hardest things to do is to paint darkness which nonetheless has light in it.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The painter of the future will be a colorist unlike anything yet.” — 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
“I want to paint men and women with that something of the external which the halo used to symbolize, and which we now seek to give by the actual radiance and vibrancy of our colorings.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Painters understand nature and love it, and teach us to see.” — Vincent van Gogh
“As long as autumn lasts, I shall not have hands, canvas, and colors enough to paint the beautiful things I see.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the truly passionate painter who dares-and who has once broken the spell of ‘you can’t.’” — Vincent van Gogh
“Just dash something down if you see a blank canvas staring at you with a certain imbecility. You do not know how paralyzing it is, that staring of a blank canvas which says to the painter: you don’t know anything.” — Vincent van Gogh
“To paint nature, you must be in it a long time.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Painting demands an intelligent model.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I sometimes think there is nothing so delightful as drawing.” — Vincent van Gogh
“If we study Japanese art, we see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic, and intelligent, who spends his time doing what? He studies a single blade of grass.”— Vincent van Gogh
“Ah! My dear friend, painting is to us what the music of Berlioz and Wagner was before us – a consolatory art for sore hearts! And yet there are only a few like you and me who feel it!!!” — Vincent van Gogh
“As a painter, I shall never signify anything of importance. I feel it Absolutely.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The great artist is the simplifier.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Christ is more of an artist than the artists; he works in the living spirit and the living flesh; he makes men instead of statues.” — Vincent van Gogh
“It is difficult to know oneself, but it isn’t easy to paint oneself either.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.” — Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh Quotes About Nature & Life

“Sometimes I long so much to do landscape, just as one would go for a long walk to refresh oneself, and in all of nature, in trees, for instance, I see expression and a soul.” — Vincent van Gogh
“In trees, I see expression and soul.” — Vincent van Gogh
“We have very beautiful bad weather here at present – rain, wind, thunder – but with splendid effects; that’s why I like it.” — Vincent van Gogh
“It is the language of nature to which one has to listen.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Surely the true path is to dive deep into nature.” — Vincent van Gogh
“One begins by plaguing oneself to no purpose in order to be true to nature, and one concludes by working quietly from one’s own palette alone, and then nature is the result.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I never get tired of the blue sky.” — Vincent van Gogh
“How right it is to love flowers and the greenery of pines and ivy and hawthorn hedges; they have been with us from the very beginning.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I devour nature ceaselessly. I exaggerate, sometimes I make changes in the subject, but still, I don’t invent the whole picture. On the contrary, I find it already there. It’s a question of picking out what one wants from nature.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Art is to console those who are broken by life.” — Vincent van Gogh
“It’s better to have a gay life of it than to commit suicide.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I am risking my life for my work, and half my reason has gone.” — Vincent van Gogh
“To save a life is a real and beautiful thing. To make a home for the homeless, yes, it is a thing that must be good; whatever the world may say, it cannot be wrong.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I consciously choose the dog’s path through life. I shall be poor; I shall be a painter…” — Vincent van Gogh
“To know life, one must love many things.” — Vincent van Gogh
“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” — Vincent van Gogh
“What a simple thing death is, just as simple as the falling of an autumn leaf.” — Vincent van Gogh
“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?” — Vincent van Gogh
“One must work and dare if one really wants to live.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives, and we obey them without realizing it.” — Vincent van Gogh
“In the end, we shall have had enough of cynicism, skepticism, and humbug, and we shall want to live more musically.” — 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
“Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Color in a picture is like enthusiasm in life.” — Vincent van Gogh
“It is only too true that a lot of artists are mentally ill – it’s a life which, to put it mildly, makes one an outsider. I’m all right when I completely immerse myself in work, but I’ll always remain half crazy.” — Vincent van Gogh
“We spent our whole lives in unconscious exercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of words.” — Vincent van Gogh
“To suffer without complaint is the only lesson we have to learn in this life.” — Vincent van Gogh
“If you don’t have a dog – at least one – there is not necessarily anything wrong with you, but there may be something wrong with your life.” — Vincent van Gogh
“In an artist’s life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.” — Vincent van Gogh
“In the fullness of artistic life, there is, and remains, and will always come back at times, that homesick longing for the truly ideal life that can never come true.” — Vincent van Gogh
“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

Vincent Van Gogh Quotes About Love

“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” — Vincent van Gogh
“What is done in love is done well.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.” — Vincent van Gogh
“It is good to love many things.” — Vincent van Gogh
“There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Love makes one calmer about things, and that way, one is fit for one’s work.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Everyone who works with love and with intelligence finds in the very sincerity of his love for nature and art a kind of armor against the opinions of other people.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.” — Vincent van Gogh
“How lovely yellow is! It stands for the sun.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” — Vincent van Gogh
“It is good to 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 well done.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I will not live without love.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The more you love, the more you suffer.” — 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
“Keep your love of nature, for that, is the true way to understand art more and more.” — Vincent van Gogh
“But you must love with a sublime, genuine, profound sympathy, with devotion, with intelligence, and you must try all the time to understand Him more, better, and yet more. That will lead to God, that will lead to an unshakeable faith.” — Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh Quotes About God & Stars

“To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, who with irresistible force urges us towards more loving.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I cannot help thinking that the best way of knowing God is to love many things. Love this friend, this person, this thing, whatever you like, and you will be on the right road to understanding Him better.” — 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
“We must not judge God from this world. It’s just a study that didn’t come off. It’s only a master who could make such a blunder.” — Vincent van Gogh
“God sends us pieces of art so that we may see ourselves in them.” — Vincent van Gogh
“But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Yellow is capable of charming God.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The sight of stars makes me dream.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Someday, death will take us to another star.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I’ll start with small things.” — Vincent van Gogh
“For my part, I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.” — Vincent van Gogh
“We take death to reach a star.” — Vincent van Gogh
“You can feel the stars and the infinity of the sky since life, in spite of everything, is like a dream.” — Vincent van Gogh
“I confess I do not know why, but looking at the stars always makes me dream.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all.” — Vincent van Gogh
“The lamps are burning, and the starry sky is over it all.” — Vincent van Gogh
“Describing Starry Night: Firmament and planets both disappeared, but the mighty breath which gives life to all things and in which all is bound up remained.” — Vincent van Gogh
“To express hope by some star, the eagerness of a soul by a sunset radiance. Certainly, there is nothing in that of stereoscopic realism but is it not something that actually exists?” — Vincent van Gogh

What were Vincent van Gogh’s last words?

Vincent van Gogh’s last words were:

“The sadness will not go away.”

Many people wonder what happened to Vincent Van Gogh. Did he commit suicide? Was it a murder mystery, or was someone else involved in the death of this renowned painter? The answer is still up for debate, but many theories suggest different causes of his demise. One theory suggests that Vincent killed himself due to depression and insanity, while others say he died from an accidental gunshot wound.

Why did Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear?

Vincent van Gogh is one of the most well-known post-impressionist artists, and his work depicts raw emotion that has captivated many for decades now. For this reason, he was always at odds with society’s values–and it finally drove him mad enough to cut off an earlobe in 1888, after having been hospitalized for mental illness multiple times previously due to depression and bouts of hallucinations caused by absinthe abuse since 1885.

What was the famous quote of Vincent van Gogh about drawing?

Vincent van Gogh, one of the famous quotes about drawing is:

“Drawing makes me so happy. Just drawing the simplest line can give me a sense of accomplishment and purpose.”

These words encourage one who draws just for themselves or as a hobby that they are not wasting time; but rather creating something beautiful with their own hands.