One must work and dare if one really wants to live.
I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.
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.
Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.
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.
When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.
An artist needn't be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.
If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?
I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.
The way to know life is to love many things.
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.
As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.
Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.
Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.
Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination do not become the slave of your model.
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.
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.
Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.
A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.