"For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream."

-Vincent van Gogh, Dutch impressionist painter, 1853-1890

This quote is from a letter van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo, in 1888. A bit of context from the original letter follows:

Is the whole of life visible to us, or do we in fact know only the one hemisphere before we die? For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream, in the same simple way as I dream about the black dots representing towns and villages on a map. Why, I ask myself, should the shining dots in the sky be any less accessible to us than the black dots on the map of France? If we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, then we take death to go to a star. What is certainly true in this reasoning is that while we are alive we cannot go to a star, any more than, once dead, we could catch a train. It seems possible to me that cholera, gravel, phthisis, and cancer could be the means of celestial transportation, just as steam-boats, omnibuses, and railways serve that function on earth. To die peacefully of old age would be to go there on foot.[1]

[1]: Full text can be found at http://www.vangoghletters.org/