"If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced."
— Vincent van Gogh
If You Hear A Voice Within
If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
About this quote
This line appears in van Gogh's correspondence from 1883, during a period of intense self-doubt and financial hardship in The Hague. It reflects his conviction that creative action was the only reliable counter to inner paralysis — that the voice of self-criticism could only be disproved by the act of working, not by reasoning or waiting. The same combative attitude toward doubt runs throughout his hundreds of letters to Theo.
Source
Letter to Theo van Gogh, October 1883
