Verbal Van Goghs

Did you know I love Van Gogh? It's true. I have for years. I can stare at his paintings for hours, and not  just the ones everyone likes, like Starry Night. Don't get me wrong, I do especially love that one. But he had so many great works, and Starry Night gets a lot more credit than the others do sometime.

But it turns out, Van Gogh could turn a phrase as beautifully as he could a paintbrush. I was astonished to learn this recently, when a friend posted a quote of his on Facebook. It was this:

"I often think that the night is more alive and richly colored than the day."

Starry Night Over The Rhone

Maybe exactly not the most stunning sentence one has ever uttered, but one that made me say "YES! YES! I know that feeling exactly!" Oh, how I love the nighttime sky, I spend hours drinking in the stars. If you're familiar with his work, the fact that he would say this is hardly surprising, either. But being the skeptic that I can sometimes be, I decided to Google and find out if he had actually said it. Turns out, that quote is indeed from him.

The Iris

And this is how I discovered an amazing treasure trove of quotes from VVG. In reading his words, I felt that he might have been a kindred spirit. I'm surely not an artist, though I wish I were. Looking at the beauty in nature makes me ache sometimes, and I longingly wish I could wield paints and brushes and make nature come alive on a canvas under the power of my hands. Perhaps that is why I usually have camera in hand while hiking, and I usually come home with literally hundreds of photographs each time.

Though artist I may not be, it seems that VVG and I thought a lot a like in some ways, about nature, and beauty, and God, and life, and people, and love. Here are a few of the ones I felt most, brought to you by the fine folks at BrainyQuote.com:

As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.

But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.

The Little Stream

Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.

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

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.

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.

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.

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.

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

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

The Sower

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.

There is no blue without yellow and without orange.

The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.

 When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.

Starry Night

For my part I know nothing with any certainty,

but the sight of the stars makes me dream. 

I'm not sure how I've gone through life this long and not known this aspect of VVG. I'm feeling a little "ignant," and simultaneously awed and excited to discover more. I think VVG would know exactly what I mean.