Vincent Van Gogh People Quotations

I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people

I have drawn into myself so much that I literally do not see any other people anymore-- excepting the peasants with whom I have direct contact, since I paint them.

Perhaps it will seem to you that the sunshine is brighter and that everything has a new charm. At least, I believe this is always the result of a deep love, and it is a beautiful thing. And I believe people who think love prevents one from thinking clearly are wrong; for then one thinks very clearly and is more active than before. And love is something eternal--the aspect may change, but not the essence. There is the same difference in a person before and after he is in love as there is in an unlighted lamp and one that is burning. The lamp was there and it was a good lamp, but now it is shedding light too, and that is its real function. And love makes one calmer about many things, and in that way, one is more fit for one's work.

Admire as much as you can. Most people do not admire enough.

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.

I can't change the fact that my paintings don't sell. But the time will come when people will recognize that they are worth more than the value of the paints used in the picture.

Well, do you know what I hope for, once I allow myself to begin to hope? [...] That you find in your love for people something not only to work for, but to comfort and restore you when there is a need.

The diseases that we civilized people labor under most are melancholy and pessimism.

There is nothing more artistic than loving people.

I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say "he feels deeply, he feels tenderly".

I want to get to the point where people say of my work, that man feels deeply.

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.

I wanted to make people think of a totally different way of living from that which we, educated people, live. I would absolutely not want anyone to find it beautiful or good without a thought.

I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove.

What am I in the eyes of most people - a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person - somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then - even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart.

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.

Find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful.

I want to do drawings which touch some people... In either figure or landscape I wish to express, not sentimental melancholy, but serious sorrow.

If you work with love and intelligence, you develop a kind of armour against people's opinions, just because of the sincerity of your love for nature and art. Nature is also severe and, to put it that way, hard, but never deceives and always helps you to move forward.

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?

The large majority of people are asleep and do not wish to wake up.

But you people do not understand me, and I am afraid you never will.

The worse I get along with people the more I learn to have faith in Nature and concentrate on her.