“If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”
“The best way to know God is to love many things.”
“But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.”
“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”
“I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.”
“I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed.”
“Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.”
“I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.”
“A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.”
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”
“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.”
“There may be a great fire in our hearts, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke.”
“Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination do not become the slave of your model.”
“Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.”
“Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.”
“As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.”
“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.”
“The way to know life is to love many things.”
“The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.”
“I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”
“If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?”
“An artist needn't be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.”
“When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.”
“It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality is more important than the feeling for pictures.”
“Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.”
“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.”
“I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.”
“One must work and dare if one really wants to live.”