Idleprimate > Idleprimate's Quotes

“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, ‘You can't do a thing’. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerizes some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of `you can't' once and for all.”
― Vincent van Gogh

“If you don’t have a dog--at least one--there is not necessarily anything wrong with you, but there may be something wrong with your life.”
― Vincent van Gogh

“I feel such a creative force in me: I am convinced that there will be a time when, let us say, I will make something good every day , on a regular basis....I am doing my very best to make every effort because I am longing so much to make beautiful things. But beautiful things mean painstaking work, disappointment, and perseverance.”
― Vincent Van Gogh

“So often, a visit to a bookshop has cheered me, and reminded me that there are good things in the world.”
― Vincent van Gogh

“It always strikes me, and it is very peculiar, that, whenever we see the image of indescribable and unutterable desolation—of loneliness, poverty, and misery, the end and extreme of things—the thought of God comes into one's mind.”
― Vincent van Gogh

“I shouldn't precisely have chosen madness if there had been any choice, but once such a thing has taken hold of you, you can't very well get out of it.”
― Vincent Van Gogh

“Admire as much as you can. Most people do not admire enough.”
― Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

“Success is sometimes the outcome of a whole string of failures.”
― Vincent van Gogh, VAN GOGH

“Both she and I have grief enough and trouble enough, but as for regrets – neither of us have any.”
― Vincent van Gogh

“That I was not suited to commerce or academic study in no way proves that I should also be unfit to be a painter.”
― Vincent Willem van Gogh

“To do good work one must eat well, be well housed, have one's fling from time to time, smoke one's pipe, and drink one's coffee in peace”
― Vincent Van Gogh

“There is a great difference between one idler and another idler. There is someone who is an idler out of laziness and lack of character, owing to the baseness of his nature. If you like, you may take me for one of those. Then there is the other kind of idler, the idler despite himself, who is inwardly consumed by a great longing for action who does nothing because his hands are tied, because he is, so to speak, imprisoned somewhere, because he lacks what he needs to be productive, because disastrous circumstances have brought him forcibly to this end. Such a one does not always know what he can do, but he nevertheless instinctively feels, I am good for something! My existence is not without reason! I know that I could be a quite a different person! How can I be of use, how can I be of service? There is something inside me, but what can it be? He is quite another idler. If you like you may take me for one of those.”
― Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

“Modern reality has got such a hold on us that... when we attempt to reconstruct the ancient days in our thoughts...the minor events of our lives tear us away from our meditations, and... thrust us back into our personal [problems]”
― Vincent van Gogh

“The cure for him would be to take a good long look at some potato plants, which have lately had such a deep and distinctive colour and tone, instead of driving himself mad looking at pieces of yellow satin and gold leather.”
― Vincent van Gogh

“It must be good to die in the knowledge that one has done some truthful work...and to know that, as a result, one will live on in the memory of at least a few and leave a good example for those who come after.”
― Vincent van Gogh

“I know well that healing comes-if one is brave-from within, through profound resignation to suffering and death, through the surrender of your own will and of your self-love. But that is of no use to me; I love to paint, to see people and things and everything that makes our life-artificial, if you like. Yes, real life would be a different thing, but I do not belong to that category of souls who are ready to live and also at any moment to suffer. I am everything but courageous in sorrow, and everything but patient when I am not feeling well, though I have rather a good deal of patience in keeping to my work.”
― Vincent van Gogh, Dear Theo

“I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime.”
― Van Gogh on "The Night Cafe" painting

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge… is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.”
― Bill Bullard

“It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one's acts.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“We have to endure the discordance between imagination and fact. It is better to say, “I am suffering,” than to say, “This landscape is ugly.”
― Simone Weil

“Not in order to justify, but simply in order to explain my lack of consistency, I say: Look at my present life and then at my former life, and you will see that I do attempt to carry them out. It is true that I have not fulfilled one thousandth part of them [Christian precepts], and I am ashamed of this, but I have failed to fulfill them not because I did not wish to, but because I was unable to. Teach me how to escape from the net of temptations that surrounds me, help me and I will fulfill them; even without help I wish and hope to fulfill them.

Attack me, I do this myself, but attack me rather than the path I follow and which I point out to anyone who asks me where I think it lies. If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side! If it is not the right way, then show me another way; but if I stagger and lose the way, you must help me, you must keep me on the true path, just as I am ready to support you. Do not mislead me, do not be glad that I have got lost, do not shout out joyfully: “Look at him! He said he was going home, but there he is crawling into a bog!” No, do not gloat, but give me your help and support.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“There are a lot of black-hearted, mean-spirited bastards in the world. It's important that we hold them to acount. But always remember that you might be the most black-hearted and mean-spirited in the lot, so hold yourself the most accountable of all.”
― Darren Shan, Zom-B Underground

“He had learned that close-held secrets could often be cracked by going all the way to the top and there making himself unbearably unpleasant. He knew that such twisting of the tiger's tail was dangerous, for he understood the psychopathology of great power.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“Blessed are the dumbfucks.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal