To dare more and to risk more

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 8 February 1883

I sometimes think I will make an experiment, and try to work in quite a different way, that is, to dare more and to risk more . . . .

But while finding more and more that one is not perfect oneself, and makes mistakes, and that other people do likewise, so that difficulties continually arise which are the opposite of illusions, I think that those who do not lose courage and who do not become indifferent, ripen through it, and one must bear hardships in order to ripen.

Letter 265
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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