Quotes about Inspiration

Love always causes trouble, that's true, but in its favour, it energizes

You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas, which says to the painter, 'You can't do a thing'.

In an artist's life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.

I'm getting on well here, I've got a lovely home & I'm finding it very pleasurable taking a look at London & the English way of life & the English people themselves, & then I've got nature & art & poetry, & if that isn't enough, what is?

One night I went for a walk by the sea along the empty shore. It was not gay, but neither was it sad; it was- beautiful. The deep blue sky was flicked with clouds of a blue deeper than the fundamental blue of intense cobalt, and others of a clearer blue, like the blue whiteness of the Milky Way. On the blue depth the stars were sparkling, greenish, yellow, white, rose, brighter, flashing more like jewels than they do even in Paris. The sea was a very deep ultramarine.

For one's own work, thoughts and observation are not enough, we need the comfort and blessing and guidance of a higher power, and that is something anyone who is at all serious and who longs to lift up his soul to the light is sure to recognize and experience. Pining for God works like leaven on dough.

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. A work that is good may not last for ever, but the thought expressed by it will, and the work itself will surely survive for a very long time, and those who come later can do no better than follow in the footsteps of such predecessors and copy their example.

I, for my part, am always glad that I have read the Bible more carefully than many people do nowadays, just because it gives me some peace of mind to know that there used to be such lofty ideals.

Admire as much as you can; most people do not admire enough.

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.

Try to grasp the essence of what the great artists, the serious masters, say in their masterpieces, and you will again find God in them. One man has written or said it in a book, another in a painting. Just read the Bible and the Gospel, that will start you thinking, thinking about many things, thinking about everything, well then, think about many things, think about everything, that will lift your thoughts above the humdrum despite yourself. We know how to read, so let us read!

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, ill as I am, do without something which is greater than I, which is my life - the power to create. And if, defrauded of the power to create physically, a man tries to create thoughts in place of children, he is still very much part of humanity.