How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?
Vincent Van GoghRead
The world concerns me only in so far as I have a certain debt and duty to it, because I have lived in it for thirty years and owe to it to leave behind some souvenir in the shape of drawings and paintings – not done to please any particular movement, but within which a genuine human sentiment is expressed.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the artist's sense of duty to contribute to the world through his creations, expressing genuine human emotions.
In this quote, Vincent Van Gogh articulates his belief that as an artist who has spent three decades in the world, he bears a responsibility to leave a mark through his artwork. He emphasizes the importance of creating art that conveys genuine human sentiments rather than conforming to artistic trends or movements, suggesting that his true aim is to communicate heartfelt emotions and experiences through his drawings and paintings.
Themes
ArtDutyEmotionExpressionHumanity
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of art in society, one might reference Van Gogh's quote to emphasize artists' responsibilities.
More from Vincent Van Gogh
All quotes →Describing Starry Night: Firmament and planets both disappeared, but the mighty breath which gives life to all things and in which all is bound up remained.
Vincent Van GoghRead
To express a marriage of two complementary colors, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones.
Vincent Van GoghRead
Great things do not just happen by impulse, _x000D_ but as a succession of small things linked together.
Vincent Van GoghRead
To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, who with irresistible force urges us towards more loving.
Vincent Van GoghRead
Since visiting the abatoirs of S. France I have stopped eating meat.
Vincent Van GoghRead
Similar quotes
The thing that hasn't changed, and I don't think will ever change, is that the operative word in music is "play." You have to have a playfulness about it. As the world shifts, it's starting to understand more and more that to have a playfulness about any and everything is actually the way of having a better life, or being more creative, or being more productive.
Hans ZimmerRead
I think architecture becomes interesting when it has a double character, that is, when it is as simple as possible but, at the same time as complex as possible
Tadao AndoRead
It's a funny thing about stories. It doesn't feel like you make them up, more like you find them. You type and type and you know you haven't got it yet, because somewhere out there, there's that perfect thing -- the unexpected ending that was always going to happen. That place you've always been heading for, but never expected to go.
Steven MoffatRead
Who among us has not dreamt, in moments of ambition, of the miracle of a poetic prose, musical without rhythm and rhyme, supple and staccato enough to adapt to the lyrical stirrings of the soul, the undulations of dreams, and sudden leaps of consciousness.
Charles BaudelaireRead
We have a duty towards music, namely, to invent it.
Igor StravinskyRead
Art isn't only a painting. Art is anything that is creative, passionate and personal. Art is the unique work of a human being created to touch another. Art is created to have an impact, to change someone else.
Seth GodinRead