"Painting is an aid to vision. It turns life, the complexity of life, into something visible. It reveals things that we don’t know how to see."

Bram van Velde Art See all quotes by Bram van Velde →

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“About Van Gogh.. a man who is on fire, a torch. His sincerity is absolute. His best painting is the grain field where he kills himself. There we find ourselves at the border of the art of painting. We cannot go further.”

“I need to go towards the illogical. This world we live in destroys us. It is always governed by the same laws. You have to create images that don’t belong to it. That are totally different from those it presents us.”

“Painting, an oeuvre, is not such a big deal, it is so unimportant. But that’s precisely what makes it interesting.”

“The beauty other people create is not for the artists. Artists have to live alone.”

“I am in the void. Nothing to hang on to.”

“The most difficult thing is when you can’t do anything. When you just have to wait.”

Resonant Thoughts

"'It's rather like a Poe story, isn't it,' said Patrick luxuriously, unfocusing his eyes. 'A person sees the chance of a better life passing by, and he makes as if to call out' - he flung one arm in th…"

— Helen Garner

Literature1942

#life

"You saw the scenes that went on in television last night. I must tell you that what we have got is an attempt to substitute the rule of the mob for the rule of law, and it must not succeed. It must no…"

— Margaret Thatcher

Politics1925–2013

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"The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, in ou…"

— Carl Sagan

Science1934–1996

#life