Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh regularly exchanged letters with his brother Theo, and this quote comes from one such letter from October 1882. The young Vincent had recently left his parents’ house and moved to The Hague in The Netherlands, where he was finally able to take daily drawing classes. In fact, Theo sent Vincent his first set of oil paints that summer, and Vincent fully dove into color. This quote applies to both painting and life. You can’t create something magnificent on a whim; great achievements are usually the result of working one step at a time.