Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.
—Pablo Picasso
One must act in painting as in life, directly.
—Pablo Picasso
I have a horror of people who speak about the beautiful. What is the beautiful?. One must speak of problems in painting!
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Beauty
I’d like to live as a poor man with lots of money.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Wealth, Money
All human beings are born with the same creative potential. Most people squander theirs away on a million superflous things. I expend mine on one thing and one thing only: my art.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: The Artist
You know, it’s just like being a peddler. You want two breasts? Well, here you are—two breasts. We must see to it that the man looking at the picture has at hand everything he needs to paint a nude. If you really give him everything he needs—and the best—he’ll put everything where it belongs, with his own eyes. Each person will make for himself the kind of nude he wants, with the nude that I will have made for him.
—Pablo Picasso
The world today doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?
—Pablo Picasso
The chief enemy of creativity is “good” sense.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Creativity, Vision
Why do you try to understand art? Do you try to understand the song of a bird?
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Art
When you are young and without success, you have only a few friends. Then, later on, when you are rich and famous, you still have a few … if you are lucky.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Friendship
Through art we express our conception of what nature is not.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Art, Artists, Arts, Nature
Drink to me.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Famous Last Words
Sculpture is the art of the intelligence.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Art
To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Imitation
We don’t grow older, we grow riper.
—Pablo Picasso
We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Arts, Lies, Art, Artists
Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.
—Pablo Picasso
Picasso’s mother held great ambitions for him when he was a child. She instructed him: If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general. If you become a monk, you’ll end up as Pope”. Instead,” Picasso quipped, “I became a painter and became a Picasso”.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Great, The Artist, Pain, General
The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Inspiration, The Artist
The essential in this time of moral poverty is to create enthusiasm.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Enthusiasm
I am always doing things I can’t do, that’s how I get to do them.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Success & Failure, Achievement
I’m a joker who has understood his epoch and has extracted all he possibly could from the stupidity, greed and vanity of his contemporaries.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Art
We must not discriminate between things. Where things are concerned there are no class distinctions. We must pick out what is good for us where we can find it.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Little Things, Things
I have discovered photography. Now I can kill myself. I have nothing else to learn.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Photography
I do not seek. I find.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Discovery, Creativity
Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? no. Just as one can never learn how to paint.
—Pablo Picasso
Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Tyranny, Individuality
If I spit, they will take my spit and frame it as great art.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Artists, Arts, Art
Is there anything more dangerous than sympathetic understanding?
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Sympathy
Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.
—Pablo Picasso
Topics: Art
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Georges Braque French Painter
- Miguel de Unamuno Spanish Philosopher, Writer
- Edgar Degas French Painter
- Michelangelo Italian Painter
- Grandma Moses American Painter
- Claude Monet French Painter
- Bahya ibn Paquda Jewish Philosopher
- Jacinto Benavente Spanish Dramatist
- Miguel de Cervantes Spanish Novelist
- Lope de Vega Spanish Playwright
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