A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.

Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.

How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter's soul.

There is no blue without yellow and without orange.

I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.

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.

One must work and dare if one really wants to live.

Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.

If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?

Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.

An artist needn't be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.

I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.

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.

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

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.

I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed.