the blank canvas

If one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of failures, one must not be afraid of making mistakes. Many people think they will become good by doing no harm. That's a lie. It leads to stagnation, to mediocrity. Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real passionate painter who dares. Life too always turns towards a man an infinitely vacant, discouraging, hopeless blank side on which nothing is written. But however vacant and vain and dead life may present itself, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, does not let himself be led astray. -- Vincent van Gogh, 1883