To Be Patient with Sadness

Two Peasant Women Digging in a Field

by Vincent van Gogh

The quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our sadnesses, the more deeply and unerringly a new revelation can enter us, and the more we can make it our own. Later on when it "happens" —when it manifests in our response to another person—we will feel it as belonging to our innermost being.

Borgeby gärd, Sweden, August 12, 1904

Letters to a Young Poet