Van Gogh: A Self-Portrait; Letters Revealing His Life as a Painter

page 162

I so hope everything will come out right, but her future as well as my own looks gloomy. I am inclined to believe there is some latent good in her still, but the trouble is, it ought to have been roused already. Now, as she has nobody to rely on it will be more difficuly for her to follow her good impulses.

page 170

I shall find things to paint everywhere. It is spelendid here, and I think I learn to paint somewhat better while painting. And my heart is in it, I need not tell you that.

page 172

One's real life begins at thirty, infact, that is to say, it's most active part.

page 174

Zola says, "Moi artiste, je veux vivre tout haut-veux vivre" [I, as an artist, want to live as vigorously as possible-want to live]

How fundamentally wrong is the man who doesn't feel himself small, who doesn't realize he is but an atom.

What shall I do now? The common phrase is, "What is your aim, what are your aspirations?" Oh, I shall do as I think best - how? I can't say that before hand - you who ask me that pretentious question, do you know what YOUR aim is, what YOUR intentions are?

page 175

Now they tell me, "You are unprincipled when you have no aim, no aspirations." My answer is, I didn't tell you I had no aim, no aspirations, I said it is the height of coneceit to try to force one to define what is indefinable.

These are my thoughts about certain questions. All that arguing about it is one of the things of which I say "embêtera"