Almost everything we know about what Vincent van Gogh thought comes from his letters: more than 800 written by him survive, most of them to his brother Theo. That is where the quotes you see online come from, although many arrive trimmed, touched up or simply made up. Here are 26 quotes checked against the critical edition of the letters by the Van Gogh Museum and Huygens ING, grouped by theme. Each one comes with the letter number, the recipient, the place, the date and a link to the full text, and is given in the edition’s own English translation of what Van Gogh wrote, not the popular version. At the end, you’ll find the quotes attributed to him that are not in the letters in that form.
Van Gogh quotes about painting and the artist’s craft
“If something in you yourself says ‘you aren’t a painter’ — IT’S THEN THAT YOU SHOULD PAINT, old chap, and that voice will be silenced too, but precisely because of that.”
Letter 400, to Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam (Drenthe), Sunday, October 28, 1883.
Vincent writes to Theo from the peat bogs of Drenthe, in a letter where he sets out how Theo should approach the craft if he ever became a painter. The popular version (“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint’…”) is a paraphrase of this passage.
“I keep on making what I can’t do yet in order to learn to be able to do it.”
Letter 528, to Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, August 18, 1885.
He wrote it to the painter Anthon van Rappard a few months after The Potato Eaters, in the middle of a quarrel with Rappard over his harsh criticism of the lithograph of that painting.
“For the great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together.”
Letter 274, to Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, October 22, 1882.
Right after this he asks what drawing is, and answers that it is working one’s way through “an invisible iron wall” between what one feels and what one can do.
“It’s looking at things for a long time that matures you and makes you understand more deeply.”
Letter 686, to Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, September 23, or Monday, September 24, 1888.
He is talking about painting in the south: a certain skill is not enough to make a painting “truly of the south”; you need time in the place.
“I’m trying now to exaggerate the essence of things, and to deliberately leave vague what’s commonplace.”
Letter 613, to Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, May 26, 1888.
“I seek, I pursue, my heart is in it”
Letter 224, to Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, May 7, 1882.
This, according to Vincent, is what the words “I’m an artist” mean, words his teacher Anton Mauve had held against him: they imply “always seeking without ever fully finding,” the exact opposite of saying “I know it already, I’ve already found it.”
“I have a terrible clarity of mind at times, when nature is so lovely these days, and then I’m no longer aware of myself and the painting comes to me as if in a dream.”
Letter 687, to Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, September 25, 1888.
He immediately adds that he fears this euphoria “will have its reaction in melancholy” when the bad season comes.
“Ah well, I risk my life for my own work and my reason has half foundered in it”
Letter RM25, to Theo van Gogh. Auvers-sur-Oise, Wednesday, July 23, 1890 (an unfinished draft he never sent).
It is one of the last things he wrote, days before he died. The popular quote “I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process” looks like a loose version of this passage.
Van Gogh quotes about love and people
“It is good to love as much as one can, for therein lies true strength, and he who loves much does much and is capable of much, and that which is done with love is well done.”
Letter 143, to Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Wednesday, April 3, 1878.
The version that goes around begins “It is good to love many things”; Vincent wrote “to love as much as one can.” At the time he was studying in Amsterdam to become a minister.
“But without intending it, I’m always inclined to believe that the best way of knowing God is to love a great deal. Love that friend, that person, that thing, whatever you like, you’ll be on the right path to knowing more thoroughly, afterwards”
Letter 155, to Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes (Borinage), between about Tuesday, June 22, and Thursday, June 24, 1880.
He wrote it in the Borinage, the Belgian coal-mining region, shortly before deciding to devote himself to art. The popular quote (“the best way to know God is to love many things”) alters the original.
“Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney and then go on their way.”
Letter 155, to Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, between about Tuesday, June 22, and Thursday, June 24, 1880.
It continues: “So now what are we to do, keep this fire alive inside, have salt in ourselves, wait patiently, but with how much impatience, await the hour…”
“…the more I think about it the more I feel that there’s nothing more genuinely artistic than to love people.”
Letter 682, to Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, September 18, 1888.
“What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody.”
Letter 249, to Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, July 21, 1882.
Cut down to “I am a nobody,” the quote loses its meaning: it is not a complaint but a statement of intent about his work.
Van Gogh quotes about nature, the night and the stars
“If one truly loves nature one finds beauty everywhere.”
Letter 022, to Theo van Gogh. London, Thursday, April 30, 1874.
He was 21 and working at the London branch of the Goupil gallery; he describes the lilacs and hawthorns in bloom in the city’s gardens and its magnificent chestnut trees.
“For myself, I declare I don’t know anything about it. But the sight of the stars always makes me dream in as simple a way as the black spots on the map, representing towns and villages, make me dream.”
Letter 638, to Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, July 9, or Tuesday, July 10, 1888.
“It” is death: Vincent wonders whether painters go on speaking to future generations through their works, and whether there is something more. He continues: just as we take the train to go to a town, “we take death to go to a star.” The popular version (“I don’t know anything with certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream”) strips away that context.
“It often seems to me that the night is much more alive and richly coloured than the day.”
Letter 676, to Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, September 8, 1888.
He had just spent three sleepless nights painting The Night Café. The next day he repeated it to his sister Willemien: “It often seems to me that the night is even more richly coloured than the day, coloured in the most intense violets, blues and greens” (letter 678, Arles, September 9 and on or about September 14, 1888). In that same letter he tells her he wants to paint a starry sky; shortly afterward he painted Starry Night over the Rhône.
“And still to feel the stars and the infinite, clearly, up there. Then life is almost magical, after all.”
Letter 663, to Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, August 18, 1888.
He is talking about a simple life: being able to live on a piece of bread while working all day and still having the strength to smoke, drink a glass and feel the stars. In the same letter he explains that in a portrait, instead of the wall of the room, he paints “the infinite,” a background of the most intense blue.
Van Gogh quotes about courage, failure and keeping going
“But if we fall, we get up again!”
Letter 178, to Anthon van Rappard. Etten, Wednesday, November 2, 1881.
Just before, he admits that however aware he is of his own fallibility, he is bound to make “a great many mistakes” anyway. The version “Only when I fall do I get up again” is not what he wrote.
“What would life be if we didn’t dare to take things in hand?”
Letter 194, to Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, December 29, 1881.
He had just rented his first studio in The Hague, for 7 guilders a month, after breaking with his father. Right before this he writes: “There is safety in the midst of danger.”
“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm fearsome, but could never see that the dangers were a reason to continue strolling on the beach. They leave that wisdom to those to whom it appeals.”
Letter 228, to Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, May 16, 1882.
He wrote it to defend his decision to marry Sien Hoornik, despite poverty and the opposition of his family and of Tersteeg, his former boss at Goupil.
“The beginning is perhaps more difficult than in other jobs, but keep your chin up and you’ll get along.”
Letter 003, to Theo van Gogh. The Hague, mid-January 1873.
It is one of the first letters to Theo, who had just joined the Goupil gallery in Brussels. He is talking about that job, not about painting.
“I’m still a long way from being what I’d like to be, but with God’s help I’ll succeed.”
Letter 089, to Theo van Gogh. Isleworth (England), Saturday, August 26, 1876.
He was working as an assistant at a boys’ school in Isleworth, near London, and hoped to become a preacher; next he says he wants to be bound to Christ “with unbreakable bonds.”
“I’m also trying more and more to be myself, remaining relatively indifferent as to whether people think it very ugly or better.”
Letter 494, to Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, April 18, 1885.
He is talking about his work: he is pleased that the dealer Portier detected “personality” in it. The version “without caring whether people approve or disapprove” is not literal.
“And be that as it may, for my part I agree with it, better to die of passion than to die of boredom.”
Letter 506, to Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, June 2, 1885.
Note: the line is not Van Gogh’s own but Émile Zola’s: it is spoken by the character Octave Mouret in the novel Au bonheur des dames; Vincent quotes it and makes it his own, as he had already done in letter 464 (Nuenen, October 2, 1884), according to the edition’s notes.
Van Gogh quotes about books and the future
“Reading books is like looking at paintings: without doubting, without hesitating, with self-assurance, one must find beautiful that which is beautiful.”
Letter 170, to Theo van Gogh. Etten, Friday, August 5, 1881.
Just before, he says he read a fairly thick book in three days, and that he is gradually acquiring the ability to read quickly and retain a strong impression of what he has read.
“We’ll eventually have enough of cynicism, scepticism, mockery, and we’ll want to live — more musically.”
Letter 686, to Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, September 23, or Monday, September 24, 1888.
He goes on to wonder how that will come about and what we will find, and concludes that it is better to have a feeling of what it will be than to see nothing but disasters in the future.
Quotes attributed to Van Gogh that are not in his letters in that form
These quotes circulate under his name, but they do not appear in the edition of the letters, or they appear with a different meaning. We have removed them from this page or replaced them with the authentic text, which you’ll find above:
- “I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process”: looks like a loose version of draft RM25 (“I risk my life for my own work and my reason has half foundered in it”).
- “I don’t know anything with certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream”: a cut-down version of letter 638, where what he doesn’t know is what comes after death.
- “It is good to love many things” and “the best way to know God is to love many things”: in letters 143 and 155 he says “to love as much as one can” and “to love a great deal.”
- “Only when I fall do I get up again”: letter 178 says “if we fall, we get up again.”
- “I am a nobody”: a cut-down version of letter 249, which says the very opposite of a complaint.
- “The fishermen… have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore”: in letter 228 it is not “remaining ashore” but “continue strolling on the beach.”
- “I dream my painting and I paint my dream” and “Normality is a paved road…”: widely shared, but they do not appear in the edition of the letters (they return no results in the vangoghletters.org search).
If you want to get to know the Van Gogh of the letters, start with our selection of Van Gogh’s letters, such as the letter he wrote with Gauguin to Émile Bernard (in Spanish), or with his biography. And if you like checked facts, take a look at our fun facts about Van Gogh too.
Source: Vincent van Gogh, The Letters, online critical edition by the Van Gogh Museum and Huygens ING (vangoghletters.org): text, dates and notes of letters 003, 022, 089, 143, 155, 170, 178, 194, 224, 228, 249, 274, 400, 464, 494, 506, 528, 613, 638, 663, 676, 678, 682, 686, 687 and RM25. Quotes in the edition’s English translation.