As some of you know I am quite the art nerd lol. So I've been very interested in learning about different artists throughout history and know so much already and it's all absolutely fascinating! Right now I have a book out from the library about Vincent Van Gogh. Vincent and his brother Theo were very close and wrote letters back and forth. This book contains most of the letters Vincent wrote to Theo. These letters share Vincents inspiration and perception on life around him. I just started the book and already there are so many lines that inspired me as an artist and as a person. I thought I'd share some of these quotes with those that are interested.

- I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?

- Admire as much as you can; most people do not admire enough.

- Try to walk as much as you can and keep your love for nature, for that is the true way to learn to understand art more and more. Painters understand nature and love her and teach us to see her. If one really loves nature, one can find beauty everywhere.

- 'No woman is old.' That does not mean there are no old women, but that a woman is not old as long as she loves and is loved.

- And there is life everywhere.

- These are really happy days I spend here, but still it is a happiness and quiet which I do not trust. Man is not easily content; now he finds things too easy and then again he is not contented enough.

- Whatever is in the bottom of the heart, stays there.

- How little we see of each other and how little we see of our parents, and yet so strong is the family feeling and our love for each other that the heart uplifts itself and the eye turns to God and prays: 'Do not let me stray too far from them, not too far, O Lord.'

- It seems to me I have grown years older in these few months.

- It is true that everyday has its own evil and its own good too. But how difficult must life be, especially farther on when the evil of each day increases as far as wordly things go, if it is not strengthened and comforted by faith.

- If one had no sense of duty, who would be able to collect his thoughts at all? The feeling of duty sanctifies everything and binds things together, making one large duty out of the many little ones.

- There may be a time in life when one is tired of everything and feels as if all one does is wrong and there may be some truth in it - do you think this is a feeling one must try to forget, to banish, or is it 'The longing for God', which one must not fear but cherish to see if it may bring us some good? Is it 'the longing for God' which leads us to make a choice which we never regret?

- Let us keep courage and try to be patient and gentle. And not to mind being eccentric, and make distinction between good and evil.

- It will be a choice for my whole life!

- Not a day without a line'; by writing, reading, working, and practising daily, perseverance will lead me to a good end.

- But sometimes a man says to himself: How shall I ever arrive! At night I am tired and I cannot get up as early as I wish. My head is sometimes heavy and often it burns and my thoughts are confused - to get used to persevere in simple regular study after all those emotional years is not easy.

- When I think of the past - when I think of the future of almost invincible difficulties, of much and difficult work, which I do not like, which I, or rather my evil self, would like to shirk; when I think the eyes of so many are fixed on me - who will know where the fault is if I do not succeed, who will not make me trivial reproaches? But as they are well tried and trained in everything that is rightand virtuous, they will say, as it were by the expression of their faces: We have helped you and have been a light unto you; have you tried honestly? What is now our reward and the fruit of our labour? See! When I think of all this, of sorrow, of disappointment, of the fear of failure, of disgrace - then I have the longing - I wish I were far away from everything!

- If we are tired, isn't it then because we have already walked a long way, and if it is true that man has his battle to fight on earth, is not then the feeling of weariness and the burning of the head a sign that we have been struggling? If I had only given all my strength to it before, yes, I should have been farther now.

- As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed. Indeed, life is a battle; we have to defend and protect ourselves, and calculate in order to make progress.

- There is something greater in the future, my conscience tells me so; we are not what other people are.

- 'He is freed from the burden of life, which we have to carry on still.' And yet we are so attached to the old life, because with our despondent moods we have our happy moments, when heart and soul rejoice as does the lark that cannot help but sing in the morning, even though the soul sometimes sinks within us and is full of fears. And the memories of all we have loved remain and come back to us in the evening of our life. They are not dead but they sleep, and it is well to gather treasure of them.

- He who must learn to work must watch the workers, especially if he has a little study just among the workshops.

- It is nothing special, but I see it all so vividly before me, and I think at such moments I could speak with enthusiasm.

- I have such a craving for thousands of things.

- 'I shall forever be at strife with man', how after a time of disappointment and grief there can come a time in life when our dearest longings and wishes may be fulfilled.

- It does one good to feel that one has still a brother, who lives and walks on this earth; when one has many things to think of, and many things to do, one sometimes gets the feeling: Where am I? What am I doing? Where am I going?

- When we look at others, who have done more than we, and are better than we, we begin very soon to hate our own life.

- I should feel more attraction for, and should rather come in contact with, one who was ugly, or old, or poor, or in some way unhappy, but who though experience and sorrow had gained a mind and a soul.

- If one begins earlier it is so much easier it is true I can work longer, and can concentrate better, and things that many others care for have no attraction for me, but after all the work costs me greater effort. And even in case I fail I want to leave my mark here and there behind me.

- If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time insight into and understading of many things.

- Whoever lives sincerely and encounters much trouble and disappointment, but is not bowed down by them, is worth more than one who has always sailed before wind and has only known relative prosperity. One must never trust the occasion when one is without difficulties.

- If only we try to live sincerely it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow and great disappointments, and also will probably commit great faults and do wrong things, but it certainly is true that it is better to be high spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent.

- It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and who-soever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done!

- If one keeps on loving faithfully what is really worth loving, and does not waste one's love on insignificant and unworthy and meaningless things, one will get more light by and by and grow stronger.

- Sometimes it is well to go into the world and converse with people, and at times one is obliged to do so, but he who would prefer to be quietly alone with his work, and who wants but very few friends, will go safest through the world and among people.

- One must never let the fire go out in one's soul, but keep it burning.

- For the work of such men, if well understood, touches more deeply than one is aware of. It must be a good thing to die conscious of having performed some real good, and to know that by this work one will live, at least in the memory of some, and will have left a good example to those that come after. A work that is good - it may not be eternal, but the though expressed in it is, and the work itself will certainly remain in existence for a long, long time; and if afterwards others arise, they can do no better than follow in the footsteps of such predecessors and do their work in the same way.

- And what one has to say must have a meaning and a purpose, and some persuasion, to rouse one's hearers, so that they will try to root their convictions in truth.

- See, there are moments in life when everything, within us too, is full of peace and sentiment, and our whole life seems to be a path through the heath, but it is not always so.

- I am glad you find things that feed the inner life. For this is what great art does, and the works of those who apply themselves with heart, mind, and soul, whose words and deeds are full of spirit and life. How rich art is! If one can only remember what one has seen, one is never idle or truly lonely, never alone.

- From darkness to light. Well who will need this most, who will have ears for it?

- One has a homelike feeling here.

- I still can find no better definition for the word art than this: nature, reality, truth; but with a significance, a conception, a character which the artist brings out in it, and to which he gives expression; which he disentangles and makes free and clears up.

- There is so much slavery still in the world

- When I saw you again and walked with you, I had the selfsame feeling which I used to have, as if life were something good and precious which one must value, and I felt more cheerful and alive than I had done for a long time, because gradually life has become less precious, much more unimportant and indifferent to me, at least it seemed so.

- Like everyone else I feel the need of relations and friendship, of affection, of friendly intercourse, and I am not made of stone or iron, so I cannot miss these things without feeling, as does any other intelligent and honest man, a void and deep need.

- Such experiences are too dreadful; the harm, the sorrow, the affliction is too great not to try on either side to become wiser by this dearly bought experience. If we do not learn from this, then from what shall we learn?

- To better my life - don't you think I eagerly desire it? I wish I were much better than I am. But just because I long for it, I am afraid of remedies that are worse than the evil itself.

- Then after a long time there rises simutaneously the thought: it is only a bad dream and later on we shall perhaps learn to understand and look at things in a better way.

- Many people would undoubtedly think it foolish and superstitious to believe still in a change for the better. Sometimes it is in winter so bitingly cold that one says: It is too cold, what do I care if there is a summer to follow, the evil surpasses by far the good. But with or without our permission there comes an end at last to the bitter frost, and on a certain morning the wind has turned and we have a thaw. Comparing the state of the weather to our state of mind and our circumstances - like the weather subject to changes and variety - I have still some hope left for a change for the better.

- When I was in the surroundings of pictures and things of art, I then had a violent passion for them that reached the highest pitch of enthusiasm. And I do not repent it, for even now, far from that land, I am often homesick for the land of pictures.

- I have lived as I could.

- That future was not much better than the one on the road now before me.

- Love a friend, a wife, something, whatever you like, but one must love with a lofty and serious intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence, and one must always try to know deeper, better, and more.

- Somebody has followed maybe for a short time a free course at the university of misery, and has paid attention to things he sees with his eyes, and hears with his ears, and has thought them over; he too, will end in believing, and he will perhaps have learned more than he can tell.

- Well think much and think all the time; that unconsciously raises your thoughts above the ordinary level. We know how to read - well let us read then.


MORE COMING!