Vincent Van Gogh Quotes: 10 Sayings To Remember The 'Starry Night' Artist On His 164th Birthday

Thursday would have been the 164th birthday of Vincent van Gogh, the famous Postimpressionist painter who created more than 2,100 works in the last decade of his life. The Dutch artist died at age 37 on July 29, 1890, just a day after being shot in the chest.

Van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in Zundert, Netherlands, and his cause of death was believed to be an infection in the gunshot wound. For years, it was thought the death of Van Gogh was a suicide, but a 2011 book about the artist suggested two boys may have shot him by accident.

Van Gogh did not decide he wanted to become an artist until he was in his mid-20s. During this time, he traveled and spent most of his time in Paris and the south of France where he learned to paint and draw. It was during these visits that he became friends with contemporaries like Paul Gauguin, Toulouse Lautrec and Camille Pissarro.

Below are some famous quotes from compiled from Goodreads and Wikiquote and some of his famous paintings.

1. “It is good to 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 well done.”

2. “I dream my painting and I paint my dream.”

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

4. “I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process.”

5. “Close friends are truly life's treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone.”

6. “I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove.”

7. “The beginning is perhaps more difficult than anything else, but keep heart, it will turn out all right.”

8. “Well, right now it seems that things are going very badly for me, have been doing so for some considerable time, and may continue to do so well into the future. But it is possible that everything will get better after it has all seemed to go wrong. I am not counting on it, it may never happen, but if there should be a change for the better I should regard that as a gain, I should rejoice, I should say, at last! So there was something after all!”

9. “I tell you, if one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of going wrong, one must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then. Many people think that they will become good just by doing no harm — but that's a lie, and you yourself used to call it that. That way lies stagnation, mediocrity.”

10. “Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague.”