archaeologicals:

Favourite Vincent van Gogh quotes (part 2)

  • “I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say ‘he feels deeply, he feels tenderly’.”
  • “We are surrounded by poetry on all sides…”
  • “In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism, skepticism and humbug, and we shall want to live more musically.”
  • “Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.”
  • “If you hear a voice within you saying, “You are not a painter,” then by all means paint - and that voice will be silenced.”
  • “I must continue to follow the path I take now. If I do nothing, if I study nothing, if I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it — keep going, keep going come what may.”
  • “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.” 
  • “…aren’t the wise ones, those who never do anything foolish, even more foolish in my eyes than I am in theirs?”
  • “For myself, I declare I don’t know anything about it. But the sight of the stars always makes me dream.”
  • “The more you love, the more you suffer.”

The Signs as Oscar Wilde Epigrams

  • Aries: Either this wallpaper goes or I do.
  • Taurus: I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
  • Gemini: To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.
  • Cancer: It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
  • Leo: Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.
  • Virgo: Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.
  • Libra: In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.
  • Scorpio: The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
  • Sagittarius: When people agree with me, I always feel that I must be wrong.
  • Capricorn: Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
  • Aquarius: I can resist everything except temptation.
  • Pisces: A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.

Kurt Vonnegut 

It’s like the people who believe they’ll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn’t work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you.

Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

If darkness is only the absence of light… If cold is only the absence of heat… If silence is just the absence of sound… If death is simply the absence of life… Then is good the absence of evil, or is evil the absence of good?

Christopher Nolan (Absolute Zero)

Daylight brings only a chain of visual sensations, none of which cohere into meaning for you anymore. Life has become out of focus, free of consequence. As you drive you turn off the headlights, for a moment. At that moment, you feel again, above you, not even far away now, that planet of awesome size, lit by no sun. An invisible titan, all thick black forests and jagged mountains and deep, turbulent oceans. You see nothing but the faint moonlight on your dashboard, but you know the planet is out there — yawning in the unseen spaces.

Night Vale (Ep. 13)