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The dreamer sometimes falls into the doldrums, but is said to emerge from them again. And the absent-minded person also makes up for it with bouts of perspicacity. Sometimes he is a person whose right to exist has a justification that is not always immediately obvious to you, or more usually, you may absent-mindedly allow it to slip from your mind. Someone who has been wandering about for a long time, tossed to and fro on a stormy sea, will in the end reach his destination. Someone who has seemed to be good for nothing, unable to fill any job, any appointment, will find one in the end and, energetic and capable, will prove himself quite different from what he seemed at first.

Vincent Willem Van Gogh#12

GrowthPatienceJudgmentPotential

About this quote

What does it mean?
People who seem absent-minded or dreamy often have hidden value and will eventually find their place or prove themselves capable.
In plain terms
Dreamers and absent-minded people may seem useless at first but often succeed later.
What can you take from it?
Do not judge people too quickly; their worth may appear later.

Where it applies

  • hiring
  • friendship
  • self-doubt

Putting it to work

  • give others time
  • trust your own path

Questions to consider

  • Have you judged someone too quickly?
  • How do you handle doubt?

Another view

The quote assumes everyone eventually succeeds, which is not always true.

More from Vincent Willem Van Gogh

  1. Try to grasp the essence of what the great artists, the serious masters, say in their masterpieces, and you will again find God in them. One man has written or…

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  2. There is a great difference between one idler and another idler. There is someone who is an idler out of laziness and lack of character, owing to the baseness …

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  3. I think that everything that is really good and beautiful, the inner, moral, spiritual and sublime beauty in men and their works, comes from God, and everythin…

    Permalink to quote #10

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