“Those who love much, do much and accomplish much, and whatever is done with love is done well.... Love is the best and noblest thing in the human heart, especially when it is tested by life as gold is tested by fire. Happy is he who has loved much, and although he may have wavered and doubted, he has kept that divine spark alive and returned to what was in the beginning and ever shall be. If only one keeps loving faithfully what is truly worth loving and does not squander one's love on trivial and insignificant and meaningless things then one will gradually obtain more light and grow stronger.”
Vincent van Gogh“Well, what shall I say; our inward thoughts, do they ever show outwardly? There may be a great fire in our soul, but no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a little bit of smoke coming through the chimney, and pass on their way.”
Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh“And the memories of all we have loved stay and come back to us in the evening of our life. They are not dead but sleep, and it is well to gather a treasure of them.”
Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh“My great longing is to learn to make those very incorrectnesses, those deviations, remodellings, changes of reality, so that they may become, yes, untruth if you like - but more true than the literal truth.”
Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh“I hope to depart in no other way than looking back with love and wistfulness and thinking, oh paintings that I would have made..”
Vincent van Gogh“..it has always been so much my desire to paint for those who don’t know the artistic side of a painting.”
Vincent van Gogh“There may be a great fire in our soul, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke.”
Vincent van Gogh“I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.”
Vincent van Gogh“The sadness will last forever.”
Vincent van Gogh“Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me.”
Vincent van Gogh“We do it because we care. We care that Vincent Van Gogh mutilated his ear. We care that behind a pile of manure in the yard he destroyed his life. We care that Scott Joplin's music lives! We care because we know this: the life we save is our own.”
Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose