“Lord, oh Lord, will I return to you once, being a genuine artist. Will all those Art lovers once behold my works with reverence and the laurel of Art then adorn my head.. .I experience so ardently all the beauty of my noble career.. .And once again I call to you, it would be much better not to live at all than being disappointed in my feeling. (translation from original Dutch text: Fons Heijnsbroek).”
“It certainly will please you to read that after my small painting ['First Love', c. 1856] what you have seen in Rotterdam, a large lithography is being made now by Lord Mouilleron, France's first lithographer.. .It becomes very beautiful. (translation from original Dutch text: Fons Heijnsbroek).”
“I take advantage of a painting that I now have at the Paris' exhibition. 3 orphan girls who are sewing in an interior room. I have sold [it] there for a nice price and have heard some interesting reviews published about it. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”
“..I would like to ask your advice as a friend, namely whether you believe I should submit my painting 'Ouden en Jongen' [Old and Young ones'] to Brussels [exhibition] or not. I thought it was a nice painting, but now I read in the Handelsblad that it is so bad. What is truth about that. Please do me the favor to sent me some words sans facon [straight forward], what is your opinion about this. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”
“Take care for purity in the paint and not so stinky thick of grease, thin, thin, thin! And just on the light [parts in the painting] here and there a small push of thick [paint].. ..thick house-interiors are unpleasant - long drawing before you start and arrange pleasantly together all things before you start to paint - if the money does not bother you, it is always useful to visit Rott. [Rotterdam]. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”
“That's how it isOne day two paintings were hanging,Right opposite each otherReally colorful and beautiful the oneAnd the other simple and honest* That simplicity and truth are the characteristicsof science and of art.Well, people can not understand that.It was to the tinsel that they gave their favor. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”