Irving Stone Lust For Life Quotes

It's so easy to love. The only hard thing is to be loved. [Vincent Van Gogh]

How difficult it is to be simple.

Normal people do not create art.

There's no love without pain.

Art is amoral; so is life. For me there are no obscene pictures or books; there are only poorly conceived and poorly executed ones.

You cannot be the good all the time — sometimes it is necessary to get angry. [Vincent Van Gogh]

I do not know a better cure for mental illness than a book.

On croit que j'imagine — ce n'est pas vrai — je me souviens. [They say I imagine — it is not true — I remember.]

Loneliness is a kind of prison. [Vincent Van Gogh]

You cannot be firmly certain about anything. You can only have enough courage and strength to do what you consider to be right. Maybe it turns out that was wrong, but still you would have done his, and it is most important.

Life's not so bad after all. There are not only poison but also antidotes.

Reading has always been the largest and most irreplaceable pleasure for Vincent; reading about other people's successes and failures, joys and sufferings seemed to bury his own failures.

Someday my paintings will be hanging in the Louvre. [Vincent Van Gogh]

Savoir souffrir sans se plaindre, ça c‘est la seule chose pratique, c‘est la grande science, la leçon à apprendre, la solution du problème de la vie. [Knowing how to suffer without complaining is the only practical thing, it's the great science, the lesson to learn, the solution to the problem of life.]

After all, the world is still great.

A person may paint or talk about painting but he cannot do both at the same time.

Everyone has their own personality, its own character, and if he respects that, everything would finally fall over for good only.

I cannot draw a human figure if I don't know the order of his bones, muscles or tendons. Same is that I cannot draw a human face if I don't know what's going on his mind and heart. In order to paint life one must understand not only anatomy, but what people feel and think about the world they live in. The painter who knows his own craft and nothing else will turn out to be a very superficial artist.

I will be an artist. I am sure I will. [Vincent Van Gogh]

Artists thrive on suffering.

Who loves — lives, who lives - works, and who works has some bread.

The one who has not seen Paris in the morning does not know how beautiful it is.

There are neither good nor evil, only the existence and action.

First, we think all truth is beautiful, no matter how hideous its face may seem. We accept all of nature, without any repudiation. We believe there is more beauty in a harsh truth than in a pretty lie, more poetry in earthiness than in all the salons of Paris. We think pain is good because it is the most profound of all human feelings. We think sex is beautiful even when portrayed by a harlot and a pimp. We put character above ugliness, pain above prettiness and hard, crude reality above all the wealth in France. We accept life in its entirety without making moral judgments. We think the prostitute is as good as the countess, the concierge as good as the general, the peasant as good as the cabinet minister, for they all fit into the pattern of nature and are woven into the design of life!

Religion will never show the way.

A man who has not suffered has nothing to tell with his paintings.

Vincent did not know how to express his feelings in words. He knew how to paint them. However, one cannot paint the farewell.

Sometimes men are generous and forgiving, sometimes angry and blind.

Nature always resists the artist at the beginning.

Being mad is even pleasant. But only a madman understands that.

Money makes the man a beast.

Pain did curious things to him. It made him sensitive to the pain of others.

The artist has to take risks.

How can a young person learn whether he chose the correct way? He thinks he has a special idea, and then he discovers that he is completely inappropriate for it.

No artist is normal. Who happen to be normal cannot be an artist.

[...] And suddenly Vincent clearly realised what his subconsciousness had known for a long time. All the talks about God are just childish elusion, just a lie that calms a scared and lonely ordinary mortal in a dark and neverending night. There is no God. Sure as fate - there is no God. There is only chaos - dismal, painful, cruel, agonizing, blind, endless chaos.

Our secret thoughts - do they ever show up? The small flame of our soul can be burning hot, but no one comes to its warmth. Passersby see only a small whiff going through the chimney. Don't we need to take care of that flame, cherish it and patiently wait until someone will come and sit at it, do we?

An artist does not have to think about what he is doing.

We are all are cripples in some way. [Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec]

Diligence does not work if there is a lack of innate talent.

The paintings that laughed at him merrily from the walls were like nothing he had ever seen or dreamed of. Gone were the flat, thin surfaces. Gone was the sentimental sobriety. Gone was the brown gravy in which Europe had been bathing its pictures for centuries. Here were pictures riotously mad with the sun. With light and air and throbbing vivacity. Paintings of ballet girls backstage, done in primitive reds, greens, and blues thrown next to each other irreverantly. He looked at the signature. Degas.

Art should be linked to abstract things - color, line, tone. It is not an instrument to improve social conditions and chase ugliness. Painting is like music and it has to separate from everyday reality.

The artist has the liberty to exaggerate, to create in his novel a world more beautiful, more simple, more consoling than ours.

Who wants to do good in this world must deny oneself. A man does not live on this Earth to be happy or to be honest only - he has to do great things for humanity, achieve the generosity of the spirit and rise above the banality where most of the people are drowning and wasting their days.

Wiedział dawniej, że można złamać rękę lub nogę i wyzdrowieć; do tej pory nie wiedział jednak, że można wyzdrowieć po ataku szaleństwa.

An empty stomach is better than full and grief is better than happiness.

The maximum value of art is that it allows the artist to express himself.

The simplest things that need self-restraint are the most difficult to replicate.

There seemed to be that same fierce quest after truth, the same unafraid penetration, the same feeling that character is beauty, no matter how sordid it may appear.

Many times in your life you may think you are failing, but ultimately you will express yourself and that expression will justify your life.

An artist would not rise above the mediocrity if he condemns it.

Perhaps you could not find such godless, such ruthless and such materialist people as clergy.

God is imagined as a rich, old gentleman who is very happy that things are going so smooth here on Earth that he had created.

Very well, Vincent," said Zola with a smile, "you have been nominated for the cult of ugliness. Do you accept the nomination?" "Alas," said Vincent, "I'm afraid I was born into it.

They had painted in a grand rush to keep intact the purity of their first impression, the mood in which the motif had been conceived.

there is more beauty in a harsh truth than in a pretty lie, more poetry in earthiness than in all the salons of Paris.

Every man must settle down once in a lifetime.

All artists are crackpots. And it's their finest feature.

Scriitorul și pictorul folosesc mijloace diferite, proprii artei fiecăruia, dar exprimă același gând.

But we artists have to be selfish you know, after all, with each painting, we die a little.

He felt extremely friendly to them all; they too knew what splendid thing it was to be in love.

Fortune is beastly — it is only suitable for cows and businessmen.

Misery is the only thing in the world that has no end or edge.

No excellent soul is exempt from mixture of madness

در دنیا مردمی لامذهب تر، سنگدل تر و دنیا پرست تر از کشیش ها یافت نمی شوند ونسان ون گوگ شور زندگی، ایروینگ ستون

What the world thought made little difference. Rembrandt had to paint. Whether he painted well or badly didn't matter; painting was the stuff that held him together as a man. The chief value of art, Vincent, lies in the expression it gives to the artist. Rembrandt fulfilled what he knew to be his life purpose; that justified him. Even if his work had been worthless, he would have been a thousand times more successful than if he had put down his desire and become the richest merchant in Amsterdam. (Mendes Da Costa

Weeks passed, Vincent did nothing - just ate, slept or sat staring at one point. [...] He wandered around the neighborhood in order to stretch his legs or just for pleasure. He walked because he was annoyed to lie, to sit or to stand. When he got tired of walking, he was sitting, lying or standing.

Vincent took them in the full spirit of friendship which knows that the difference between giving and taking is purely temporal.

Savoir souffrir sans se plaindre, ça c’est la seule chose partique, c’est la grande science, la leçon à apprendre, la solution du problème de la vie.

Only suffering grows big artists.

The brooding is better than the joy because even if the heart fills with happiness, it still mourns.

Nijedna savršena duša nije lišena neke mešavine ludila. Aristotel

Morality is similar to religion - it is a somniferous drug which blinds people from seeing the squalor of their lives.

There's all the kids at home, and my mother and brother. And the men I pick up. But you live alone anyhow, don't you? It ain't people that count. It's having someone you really like.

The desire to succeed had left Vincent. He worked because he had to, because it kept him from suffering too much mentally, because it distracted his mind. He could do without a wife, a home, and children; he could do without love and friendship and health; he could do without security, comfort, and food; he could even do without God. But he could not do without something which was greater than himself, which was his life—the power and ability to create.

These workers," said Mendes with a gentle sweep of his arm, "have a hard life of it. When illness comes they have no money for a doctor. The food for tomorrow comes from today's labour, and hard labour it is, too. Their houses, as you see, are small and poor; they are never more than a stone's throw away from privation and want. They've made a bad bargain with life; they need the thought of God to comfort them.

The fields that push up the corn, and the water that rushes down the ravine, the juice of the grape, and the life of a man as it flows past him, are all one and the same thing. The sole unity in life is the unity of rhythm. A rhythm to which we all dance; men, apples, ravines, ploughed fields, carts among the corn, houses, horses, and the sun. The stuff that is in you, Gauguin, will pound through a grape tomorrow, because you and the grape are one. When I paint a peasant labouring in the field, I want people to feel the peasant flowing down into the soil, just as the corn does, and the soil flowing up into the peasant. I want them to feel the sun pouring into the peasant, into the field, the corn, the plough, and the horses, just as they all pour back into the sun. When you begin to feel the universal rhythm in which everything on earth moves, you begin to understand life….

Do you know the anecdote about Rubens? He was serving Holland as Ambassador to Spain and used to spend the afternoon in the royal gardens before his easel. One day a jaunty member of the Spanish Court passed and remarked, ‘I see that the diplomat amuses himself sometimes with painting,’ to which Rubens replied, ‘No, the painter amuses himself sometimes with diplomacy!

Sometimes I think that just as trains and carriages are means of locomotion to get us from one place to another on this earth, so typhoid and consumption are means of locomotion to get us from one world to another.

I have to make my drawing right so that my drawing will be right.

'Tell me, please,' Van Gogh asked, 'is it justifiable that a person wastes his only life by selling worthless paintings for fools?

Actually, Paris wakes up when it comes time for aperitif.

Puterea oamenilor seamănă foarte mult cu desenul. Întreaga perspectivă se modifică o dată cu schimbarea unghiului de vedere, și asta nu depinde de subiect, ci de cel care privește.

...Kita harus bertindak sesuai dengan nalar kita, dan selanjutnya biarkan Tuhan yang menentukan nilai akhirnya, Kalau kau yakin pada saat ini ingin menjadi pelayan Sang Pencipta kita dengan cara tertentu, maka keyakinan itulah satu-satunya pembimbing yang kau miliki menuju masa depan. Jangan takut untuk meyakini hal ini.

گوگن: آقای ون گوگ پاریس را چطور می بینید؟ ون گوگ: خیلی دوست دارم گوگن: عجیبه! همه همین را میگن! من به سهم خودم پاریس را خاکروبه دونیِ بزرگی می دونم که تمدن هم خاکروبه اش است شور زندگی، ایروینگ ستون

You can only have the courage and strength to do what you think is right. It may turn out to be wrong, but you will at least have done it, and that is the important thing. We must act according to the best dictates of our reason, and then leave God to judge its ultimate value.

Винсент не можеше да проумее защо хората в селището толкова не го обичат. На никого не пречеше, никому не беше сторил зло. Той не си даваше сметка каква странна гледка беше за това тихо селце, където животът не се беше променил нито с една дума, нито с един обичай от стотици години.

Because it will make a real artist of you. The more you suffer, the more grateful you ought to be. An empty stomach is better than a full one, Van Gogh, and a broken heart is better than happiness. Never forget that!

Nikada ne možete biti sigurni u nešto sve vreme. Možete imati samo odvažnosti i snage da učinite ono što mislite da je pravo. Možda će se to kasnije pokazati kao netačno, ali vi ste ga bar učinili, a to je ono što je važno.

Do you call yourself an artist?” “Yes.” “How absurd. You never sold a picture in your life.” “Is that what being an artist means—selling? I thought it meant one who was always seeking without absolutely finding. I thought it means the contrary from ‘I know it, I have found it.’ When I say I am an artist, I only mean

He was spilling out a year of his life blood with every convulsive painting that he tore from his vitals. It was not the length of his stay on earth that mattered to him ; it was what he did with the days of his life. For him time would have to be measured by the paintings he poured out, not by the fluttering leaves of a calendar.

Oare gândurile noastre intime sunt cunoscute vreodată de cei dinafară? Poate că în sufletul nostru arde un foc puternic, dar nimeni nu vine să se încălzească la el. Trecătorii văd doar o dâră de fum ieșind pe coș și trec mai departe. Atunci, spune-mi, ce e de făcut? Nu trebuie oare hrănit acest foc lăuntric, nu trebuie să ai încredere în tine însuți, să aștepți cu răbdare clipa când cineva se va opri și se va încălzi la dogoarea lui?

آیا معنی هنرمند بودن، فروختن است؟ من خیال می کردم هنرمند کسی است که دائما می جوید بدون اینکه "کاملا" بیابد. فکر می کردم که مفهوم آن، مخالف «میدانم، آن را یافتم» است. وقتی می گویم که من هنرمندم، فقط مقصودم اینست که جستجو می کنم، تکاپو می کنم و از ته دل به آن می پردازم

'I saw the light of your room through the bottom of the door,' said vice-admiral, 'the watchman told me he had seen you in the yard four o'clock in the morning. How many hours per day do you work?' 'It depends. Sometimes eighteen, sometimes twenty.' 'Twenty!' Uncle Jan shook his head, his face became even more concerned. Vice-admiral could not believe that there would be such a thickhead in Van Gogh family.

Un creier omenesc obișnuit judecă lucrurile numai sub două aspecte diametral opuse: lumină și umbră, dulce și acru, bine și rău. Dar în natură această dualitate nu există. În lume nu există nici bine, nici rău, există doar a fi și a face. Când descriem o acțiune, descriem însăși viața; dacă lipim însă sub această acțiune etichete ca ”depravare” sau ”obscenitate”, intrăm în domeniul prejudecăților subiective.

You are a grand nerveux, Vincent,” Doctor Rey had told him. “You never have been normal. But then, no artist is normal; if he were, he wouldn’t be an artist. Normal men don’t create works of art. They eat, sleep, hold down routine jobs, and die. You are hypersensitive to life and nature; that’s why you are able to interpret for the rest of us. But if you are not careful, that very hypersensitiveness will lead you to your destruction. The strain of it breaks every artist in time.

I don’t know myself,” he said. “I sit down with a white board before the spot that strikes me, and I say, ‘That white board must become something!’ I work for a long time, I come back home dissatisfied, I put it away in the closet. When I have rested a little I go to look at it with a kind of fear. I am still dissatisfied because I have too clearly in my mind the splendid original to be content with what I have made of it. But after all, I find in my work an echo of what struck me. I see that nature has told me something, has spoken to me, and that I have put it down in shorthand. In my shorthand there may be words that cannot be deciphered, there may be mistakes or gaps, but there is something in it of what the woods or beach or figure has told me. Do you understand?” “No.

But you can draw people’s faces, can’t you? I’m sure lots of women here in Etten would like to have their portraits painted. There’s a living in that.” “Yes, I suppose so. But I’ll have to wait until my drawing is right.” His mother was breaking eggs into a pan of sour cheese she had strained the day before. She paused with half the shell of an egg in each hand and turned from the stove. “You mean you have to make your drawing right so the portraits will be good enough to sell?” “No,” replied Vincent, sketching rapidly with his pencil, “I have to make my drawing right so that my drawing will be right.” Anna Cornelia stirred the yolks into the white cheese thoughtfully and then said, “I’m afraid I don’t understand that, son.” “Neither do I,” said Vincent, “but anyway it’s so.

When I was young, Monsieur,” he said, “I used to think a lot about God. But He seems to have grown thinner with the years. He is still in that cornfield you painted, and in the sunset by Montmajour, but when I think about men . . . and the world they have made . . .” “I know, Roulin, but I feel more and more that we must not judge God by this world. It’s just a study that didn’t come off. What can you do in a study that has gone wrong, if you are fond of the artist? You do not find much to criticize; you hold your tongue. But you have a right to ask for something better.” “Yes, that’s it,” exclaimed Roulin, “something just a tiny bit better.” “We should have to see some other work by the same hand before we judge him. This world was evidently botched up in a hurry on one of his bad days, when the artist did not have his wits about him.

He did not know how much time passed. He got up, ripped the canvas off the frame, threw it into a corner, and put on a new one. He mixed some paints, sat down, and began work. One starts with a hopeless struggle to follow nature, and everything goes wrong; one ends by calmly creating from one’s palette, and nature agrees with it and follows. On croit que j’imagine—ce n’est pas vrai—je me souviens. It was just as Pietersen had told him in Brussels; he had been too close to his models. He had not been able to get a perspective. He had been pouring himself into the mould of nature; now he poured nature into the mould of himself. He painted the whole thing in the colour of a good, dusty, unpeeled potato. There was the dirty, linen table cloth, the smoky wall, the lamp hanging down from the rough rafters, Stien serving her father with steamed potatoes, the mother pouring the black coffee, the brother lifting a cup to his lips, and on all their faces the calm, patient acceptance of the eternal order of things. The sun rose and a bit of light peered into the storeroom window. Vincent got up from his stool. He felt perfectly calm and peaceful. The twelve days’ excitement was gone. He looked at his work. It reeked of bacon, smoke, and potato steam. He smiled. He had painted his Angelus. He had captured that which does not pass in that which passes. The Brabant peasant would never die.