Vincent Van Gogh citáty

page 6

„Srdce človeka je veľmi podobné moru, má svoje búrky, má svoje prílivy a vo svojich hĺbkach má aj svoje perly.“

„Ak skutočne milujete prírodu, všade nájdete krásu.“

„Smútok bude trvať večne.“

„Tí, ktorí snívajú cez deň, si uvedomujú mnohé veci, ktoré unikajú tým, ktorí snívajú len v noci.“

„Normálnosť je vyšliapaná cesta: Je príjemné na nej chodiť, ale nerastú po nej žiadne kvety.“

„Hľadám, snažím sa, celým svojím srdcom.“

„Nechajte nás pracovať srdcom a dovoľte nám, aby sme naozaj milovali to, čo milujeme.“

„Je možné, že ľudia, ktorí neurobia nič iné ako to, že sa zaľúbia, sú užitočnejší ako tí, ktorí svoju lásku a srdce obetujú určitej idei.“

„Život sa postupne stáva stále ťažším, ale pri zápase s ťažkosťami sa rozvíja najvnútornejšia sila srdca.“

„Buďte si jasne vedomí hviezd a nekonečna. Potom sa život zdá byť skoro ako začarovaný.“

„Čo by bolo zo života, keby sme nemali odvahu robiť experimenty?“

„Poviem ti, čím viac nadštáým premýšľam, tým viac čítam; že neexistuje väčšie umenie, ako je milovať ľudi.“

„Je lepšie mať výbušnú povahu, aj keď sa často dopúšťame chýb, než byť úzkostlivo a nemiestne opatrný.“

„Jedného dňa nás smrť prenesie na inú hviezdu.“

„Kto prírodu opravdivo miluje, nachádza všade krásu.“

„Výsledkom myslenia nemá byť pocit, ale čin“

„Neúspešný pokus o samovraždu je najlepším liekom na neskoršiu samovraždu.“

„Jediný čas, kedy sa cítim nažive je, keď maľujem.“

„Milovať je ľahké; to neľahké na láske je len to, aby nás zasa niekto miloval.“

„Prajem si, aby ma brali takého, aký som.“

„Láska objavuje na milovanej osobe stále nové svetadiely.“

„Najlepší spôsob ako poznať Boha, je milovať mnoho vecí.“

„Krása ženstva je súčasťou prírody, zatiaľ čo sila mužnosti súčasťou vesmíru.“

„Kto ľúbi žije. Kto žije, pracuje. Kto pracuje, ten má chlieb.“

„Je dobré milovať veľa vecí, pretože v nich spočíva skutočná sila, a ktokoľvek miluje veľa, veľa robí a môže toho veľa dosiahnuť a to, čo sa dosiahne s láskou, je dobre vykonané.“

„Veľké veci nevznikajú z náhleho impulzu, ale z množstva malých vecí pospájaných dohromady.“

„Človek by mal žiť ako mních, ktorý však raz za dva týždne navštívi bordel.“

„Namiesto premýšľania o tom, aký som umelec, radšej skúmam, ako sú ruky, nohy a hlava spojené s ostatným telom.“

„Predovšetkým nesmieme zabudnúť na veľkú súvislosť vecí. Uzavrieť sa, znamená zamurovať sa a zamurovať sa znamená smrť.“

„Správne a nesprávne neexistujú oddelene, ale ako čierna a biela v prírode.“

„Ľudia, ´milujme, čo milujeme, sa opiera o základnú pravdu. Tá základná pravda znie: "Sme ľudia a milujeme."“

„Radšej by som zomrel od vášne ako od nudy.“

„... ale zas, mám prírodu, umenie a poéziu, a ak toto nestačí, tak čo potom?“

„Veľké veci sú tvorené sériami malých vecí, ktoré sa spoja.“

„Rybári vedia, že more je nebezpečné a búrka je desivá, ale nikdy im nepripadali tieto nebezpečenstvá ako dostatočný dôvod na to, aby zostali na brehu.“

„Ešte som ďaleko od toho, čím chcem byť, ale s Božou pomocou sa mi tam určite podarí dostať.“

„Je dobré dokázať presvedčenie, že všetko je omnoho čarovnejšie, ako môžeme pochopiť, pretože toto je pravda.“

„Stále viac a viac sa snažím byť sám sebou a relatívne málo sa starám o to, či s tým ľudia súhlasia alebo nesúhlasia.“

“If you saw the first painted color-studies that I made when I came here to Nuenen [1883] - and the present canvas [1885] - side by side - I think you'd see that as far as colour is concerned - things have livened up. I think that the question of the breaking of colours in the relationships of the colours will occupy you too one day. For as an art expert and critic, one must also, it seems to me - be sure of one's ground and have certain convictions. At least for one's own pleasure and to be able to give reasons, and at the same time one must be able to explain it in a few words to others, who sometimes turn to someone like you for enlightenment when they want to know something more about art.”

“Ill as well, and I have not been brave. Then face to face with the suffering of these attacks I feel very frightened too.... All the same I know well that healing comes - if one is brave - from within through profound resignation to suffering and death, through the surrender of your own will and of your self-love. But that is no use to me, I love to paint, to see people and things and everything that makes our life - artificial - if you like.”

“.. How I paint I do not know myself. I sit down with a white board before the spot that strikes me, I look at what is before me, I say to myself that white board must become something, I come back dissatisfied - I put it away, and when I have rested a little I go to look at it with a kind of fear. Then I am still dissatisfied, because I have still too closely in my mind that splendid nature..”

“Involuntarily and without any definite motive, I had a thought that often occurs to me. Not only did I begin drawing relatively late in life, but it may also be that I shall not live for so very many years to come… I think I may presume without rashness: that my body will keep a certain number of years "quand bien meme" - a certain number, say between six and ten years for instance… This is the period on which I reckon firmly.”

“What has changed is that my life then was less difficult and my future seemingly less gloomy, but as far as my inner self, my way of looking at things and of thinking is concerned, that has not changed. But if there has indeed been a change, then it is that I think, believe and love more seriously now what I thought, believed and loved even then.”

“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.”

“Now I ask you whether you yourself have not often noticed that the policy of floating between the old and the new is not tenable? Just think this over. Sooner or later it ends with one's standing frankly either to the right or to the left.
It is no ditch, and I repeat, then it was '48 [the 1848 Revolutions in Europe, ] now it is '84 [1884]; then there was a barricade of paving stones - now it is not of stones, but a barricade as to the incompatibility of old and new.”

“My dear Theo, Feeling, even a fine feeling, for the beauties of nature isn't the same as religious feeling, although I believe that the two are closely connected. The same is true of a feeling for art. Don't give in to that too much either. Hold fast especially to your love for the firm [of the Paris' art dealers Goupil & C0, where both brothers worked - Vincent started in 1869 and Theo in 1873] and for your work.... Nearly everyone has a feeling for nature, some more than others, but there are few who feel that God is a spirit, and that they must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Pa is one of the few, Ma too, and also Uncle Vincent, I believe.”

“.. At the end of the month I should like to go to the hospital at St. Remy or another institution of this kind. What comforts me a little, is that I am beginning to consider madness as a disease like any other and accept the thing as such, whereas during the crises themselves, I thought that everything I imagined was real... After all... I have perhaps still some almost normal years in front of me.”

“.. Our life is a pilgrim's progress. I once saw a very beautiful picture: it was a landscape at evening. In the distance on the right-hand side a row of hills appeared blue in the evening mist. Above those hills the splendour of the sunset, the grey clouds with their linings of silver and gold and purple. The landscape is a plain or heath covered with grass and its yellow leaves, for it was in autumn. Through the landscape a road leads to a high mountain far, far away, on the top of that mountain is a city wherein the setting sun casts a glory. On the road walks a pilgrim, staff in hand. He has been walking for a good long while already and he is very tired. And now he meets a woman, or figure in black, that makes one think of St. Paul's word: As being sorrowful yet always rejoicing. That Angel of God has been placed there to encourage the pilgrims and to answer their questions and the pilgrim asks her: Does the road go uphill then all the way? And the answer is: "Yes to the very end."”

“.. The thought crossed my mind, how society today in its fall, at moments seen against the light of a renewal, stands out as a large, gloomy silhouette. Yes, for me, the drama of storm in nature, the drama of sorrow in life, is the most impressive.”

“.. Here I am shut up for the livelong day under lock and key and with keepers in a cell.... I will not deny that I would rather have died than have caused and suffered such trouble.”

“Boughton together with Abbey are making for Harper in New York drawings called "Picturesque Holland".... now I say to myself if the Graphic and Harper send their draughtsmen to Holland they would perhaps not be unwilling to accept a draughtsman from Holland [Vincent himself], if he can furnish some good work for not too much money. I should prefer to be accepted on regular monthly wages rather than to sell a drawing now and then at a relatively high price.”

“There is a saying by Gustave Dore which I have always admired: "J'ai la patience d'un boeuf." [I have the patience of an ox]. I find in it a certain goodness, a certain resolute honesty, more, it has a deep meaning that saying, it is the word of a real artist. When one thinks of the men from whose heart such a saying sprang, all the arguments one too often hears of art dealers about "natural gifts", seem to become a terrible raven's croaking.”

“What surprising fellows those French painters are. A Millet, Delacroix, Corot, Troyon, Daubigny, Rousseau, and a Daumier.... Something else about Delacroix - he had a discussion with a friend about the question of working absolutely from nature, and said on that occasion that one should take one's 'studies' from nature - but that the 'actual painting' had to be made 'by heart'. This friend was walking along the boulevard when they had this discussion - which was already fairly heated. When they parted the other man was still not entirely persuaded. After they parted, Delacroix let him stroll on for a bit - then (making a trumpet of his two hands) bellowed after him in the middle of the street - to the consternation of the worthy passers-by:
'By heart! By heart!”

“Some good must come by clinging to the right. Conscience is a man's compass, and though the needle sometimes deviates, though one often perceives irregularities in directing one's course by it, still one must try to follow its direction.”

“.. Now there is in the South of Belgium, in Hainault, in the neighborhood of Mons.... a district called the Borinage, that has a peculiar population of laborers who work in the numerous coal mines... I should very much like to go there as an evangelist.... St. Paul was three years in Arabia before he began to preach..”

“Now for the past five years or so, I don't know how long exactly, I have been more or less without permanent employment, wandering from pillar to post. You will say, ever since such and such a time you have been going downhill, you have been feeble, you have done nothing. Is that entirely true?”

“Text: Psalm 119:19. I am a stranger on the earth, hide not Thy command ments from me.
Are we what we dreamt we should be? No, but still the sorrows of life..., so much more numerous than we expected, the tossing to and fro in the world, they have covered it over, but it is not dead, it sleepeth.”

“Some time ago I saw a painting by Thijs Maris [= Matthijs Maris, one of the three brothers Maris, all three famous Dutch impressionist painters of the Hague School ] that reminded me of it. An old Dutch town with rows of brownish red houses with step-gables and tall flights of steps, grey roofs, and white or yellow doors, window-frames and cornices; canals with ships and a large white drawbridge, a barge with a man at the tiller going under it... Some distance away a stone bridge over the canal, with people and a cart with white horses crossing it. And everywhere movement, a porter with his wheelbarrow, a man leaning against the railing, gazing into the water, women in black with white caps... A greyish white sky over everything…”

“My intention is to make in Drenthe so much progress in painting that when I come back I may be qualified for the 'Society of Draughtsmen' [a group of London illustrators]. This stands again in connection with the second plan of going to England”

“Oh, Theo, why should I change - I used to be very passive and very gentle and quiet — I'm that no longer, but then I'm no longer a child either now - sometimes I feel my own man.”

“.. I went to live in my studio on the first of May [? ]... I have not had a hot dinner more than perhaps six or seven times since. I have lived then and I do so here, not having money for dinner, because the work costs me too much and I have trusted too much on my being strong enough to hold out. Now I have made it worse by smoking a great deal, which I do the more because then one does not feel an empty stomach so much... My opinion is that one must not think that the people whose health is damaged, quite or partly, are no good for painting... It fell so unexpectedly on me, I had been feeling weak and feverish, but I went on notwithstanding, but I began to feel worried when more and more teeth broke off, and I began to look more and more ill.”

“.. How glad I was when this doctor took me for an ordinary workingman and said: "I suppose you are an iron worker." That is just what I have tried to change in myself; when I was younger, I looked like one who has been intellectually overwrought, and now I look like a skipper or an iron worker.”

“.. I am always between two currents of thought, first the material difficulties, turning round and round to make a living; and second, study of color. I am always in hope of making a discovery there, to express the love of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones. To express the thought of a brow by the radiance of a light tone against a sombre background. To express hope by some star, the eagerness of a soul by a sunset radiance. Certainly there is nothing in that of stereoscopic realism, but is it not some thing that actually exists?”

“Believe me, I work, I drudge, I grind all day long and I do so with pleasure, but I should get very much discouraged if I could not go on working as hard or even harder... I feel, Theo, that there is a power within me, and I do what I can to bring it out and free it. It is hard enough, all the worry and bother with my drawings, and if I had too many other cares and could not pay the models I should lose my head.”

“Formerly I felt repulsion for these creatures, and it was a harrowing thought for me to reflect that so many of our profession, Troyon, Marchal, Meryon, Jundt, M. Maris, Monticelli [all painter-artists], and heaps more had ended like this.”

“. I have done well to come here [to the hospital of Saint-Remy, ] first of all that by seeing the actual truth about the life of the various madmen and lunatics in this menagerie I am losing the vague dread, the fear of the thing.”

“The dreamer sometimes falls into the doldrums, but is said to emerge from them again. And the absent-minded person also makes up for it with bouts of perspicacity. Sometimes he is a person whose right to exist has a justification that is not always immediately obvious to you, or more usually, you may absent-mindedly allow it to slip from your mind. Someone who has been wandering about for a long time, tossed to and fro on a stormy sea, will in the end reach his destination. Someone who has seemed to be good for nothing, unable to fill any job, any appointment, will find one in the end and, energetic and capable, will prove himself quite different from what he seemed at first.”