Quotes about Communication

We spent our whole lives in unconsous excercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of words

So what do you want? Does what happens inside show on the outside? There is such a great fire in one's soul, and yet nobody ever comes to warm themselves there, and passersby see nothing but a little smoke coming from the top of the chimney, and go on their way.

I thought I would be understood without words

it has always been so much my desire to paint for those who don't know the artistic side of a painting.

Now and then when I am writing, I automatically do a small drawing, such as I sent you lately. I did one this morning representing Elijah in the desert under an orange sky, with some hawthorns in the foreground. It is nothing special, but I see it all so clearly before me, and I think that at such moments I could speak about it enthusiastically - may it be given me to do so later on.

If I were living near you, I should try to make you understand that it might perhaps be more practical for you to paint with me than to write, and that you might be able to express your feelings more easily that way. In any case I can do something personally about your painting, but I am not in the writing profession.

Neither Gauguin nor Bernard has written again. I think that Gauguin doesn't care a damn about it, because it isn't going to be done at once, and I for my part, seeing that Gauguin has managed to muddle along by himself for six months, am ceasing to believe in the urgent necessity of helping him.

But don't worry too much about it, we shall not fail, but what I tell you is true - from the moment that I send this letter off till I get your answer, which I hope, however, will cross mine, I shall be without a cent, and it will mean fasting again. Well, let's hope we shall be together soon, and that the worst will be over.

But if we keep to the positive fact of wanting to produce and to be something, then we can talk over accomplished facts, when it cannot be avoided, without getting angry, even if they might concern, or stand in direct relation with, the Goupils or our family. Besides, these questions are between you and me for a better understanding of the situation, and not out of spite.

One has to secrete a jelly in which to slip quotations down people's throats—and one always secretes too much jelly.

Humor is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.

We can best help you to prevent war not by repeating your words and following your methods but by finding new words and creating new methods.