677 Quotes by Vincent Van Gogh

Painting is a faith and that it brings with it the duty to pay no heed to public opinion – and that in it one conquers by perseverance and not by giving in.

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.

I myself believe that there is in every painter’s life a period of making absurdities. In my case I think that period is already long past.

I’ll start with small things.

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.

But you must love with a high, serious intimate sympathy, with a will, with intelligence, and you must always seek to know more thoroughly, better, and more.

When I have a model who is quiet and steady and with whom I am acquainted, then I draw repeatedly ’til there is one drawing that is different from the rest, which does not look like an ordinary study, but more typical and with more feeling.

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.

There is peace even in the storm.