677 Quotes by Vincent Van Gogh

Oh, I am no friend of present-day Christianity, though its founder was sublime- I have seen through present-day Christianity only too well. That icy coldness mesmerized even me, in my youth- but I have taken my revenge since then. How? By worshipping the love which they, the theologians, call sin, by respecting a whore, etc, To some, woman is heresy and diabolical. To me she is the opposite.ov

In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism, skepticism and humbug, and we shall want to live more musically.

So instead of giving in to despair I chose active melancholy, in so far as I was capable of activity, in other words I chose the kind of melancholy that hopes, that strives and that seeks, in preference to the melancholy that despairs numbly and in distress.

I keep hoping that I’ll come up with something. To express the love of two lovers by the marriage of two complementary colours, their blending and their contrast, the mysterious vibrations of related tones. To express that thought of a brow by the radiance of a light tone against a dark background. To express hope by some star. Someone’s passion by the radiance of the setting sun.

You can feel the stars and the infinity of the sky. Since life, in spite of everything, is like a fairytale.

How much sadness there is in life. Still, it won't do to become depressed, one should turn to other things, and the right thing is work, but there are times when one can only find peace of mind in the realization: I, too, shall not be spared by unhappiness.

For me, life may well continue in solitude. I have never perceived those to whom I have been most attached other than as through a glass, darkly.

So don’t study and swot too much, for that makes one sterile. Enjoy yourself too much rather than too little, and don’t take art or love too seriously- there is very little one can do about it

At present this horror of life is already less pronounced, and the melancholy less acute. But I still have no will, and hardly any desires, or none at all that are to do with ordinary life.