Pablo Picasso Quotes & Sayings

When I was a child my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk, you'll be the pope.' Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso. — Pablo Picasso

Basically the French are all peasants. — Pablo Picasso

We have a lot of reasons but only one real one. — Pablo Picasso

When we discovered cubism, we did not have the aim of discovering cubism. We only wanted to express what was in us. — Pablo Picasso

If I had known there was such a thing as Islamic Calligraphy, I would never have started to paint. I have strived to reach the highest levels of artistic mastery, but I found that Islamic Calligraphy was there ages before I was. — Pablo Picasso

Imitators? All right! Disciples if you like. But disciples be damned. It's not interesting. — Pablo Picasso

I work with few colors, what creates the illusion of quantity is that they fell in the right place. — Pablo Picasso

Each time I undertake to paint a picture I have a sensation of leaping into space. I never know whether I shall fall on my feet. It is only later that I begin to estimate more exactly the the effect of my work. — Pablo Picasso

It is personality with a penny's worth of talent. Error which chances to rise above the commonplace. — Pablo Picasso

I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else. — Pablo Picasso

Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it? — Pablo Picasso

It's a poor artist who borrows
a good artist steals. — Pablo Picasso

Whatever the source of emotion that drives me to create, I want to give it a form which has some connection with the visible world, even if it is only to wage war on that world ... I want my paintings to be able to defend themselves to resist the invader, just as though there were razor blades on all surfaces so no one could touch them without cutting his hands. — Pablo Picasso

There is only one way to see things, until someone shows us how to look at them with different eyes — Pablo Picasso

The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls. — Pablo Picasso

There's nothing so similar to one poodle dog as another poodle dog, and that goes for women, too. — Pablo Picasso

Braque always said that the only thing that counts, in painting, is the intention, and it's true. What counts is what one wants to do, and not what one does. That's what's important. — Pablo Picasso

Art is a finger up the bourgeoisie ass. — Pablo Picasso

To model an object is to possess it. — Pablo Picasso

Manifesting takes place from Spirit. It doesn't take place from form, from the physical world. You've got to know that what you want to manifest will occur. — Pablo Picasso

I don't believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents. — Pablo Picasso

What is a face really? It's own photo? It's makeup? Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter? That which is in front? Inside? Behind? And the rest? Doesn't everyone look at himself in his own particular way? Deformations simply do not exist. — Pablo Picasso

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality. — Pablo Picasso

I have discovered photography. Now I can kill myself. I have nothing else to learn. — Pablo Picasso

It takes a long time to grow young. — Pablo Picasso

I would like to live like a poor person with a lot of money. — Pablo Picasso

If you have five elements available use only four. If you have four elements use three. — Pablo Picasso

Today, as you know, I am famous and very rich. But when I am alone with myself, I haven't the 'courage' to consider myself an artist, in the great and ancient sense of that word ... I am only a public entertainer, who understands his age. — Pablo Picasso

People want Art. And they are given it. But the less Art there is in painting the more painting there is. — Pablo Picasso

All things considered, there is only Matisse. — Pablo Picasso

We have learned nothing in twelve thousand years. (Upon exiting the Lascaux cave, France) — Pablo Picasso

The goal I proposed myself in making cubism? To paint and nothing more ... with a method linked only to my thought ... Neither the good nor the true; neither the useful nor the useless. — Pablo Picasso

To make oneself hated is more difficult than to make oneself loved. — Pablo Picasso

I don't develop; I am. — Pablo Picasso

Photographers, along with dentists, are the two professions never satisfied with what they do. Every dentist would like to be a doctor and inside every photographer is a painter trying to get out. — Pablo Picasso

A piece of space-dust falls on your head once every day ... With every breath, we inhale a bit of the story of our universe, our planet's past and future, the smells and stories of the world around us, even the seeds of life. — Pablo Picasso

When you come right down to it all you have is yourself. The sun is a thousand rays in your belly. All the rest is nothing. — Pablo Picasso

You must always work not just within but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle only five. In that way the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve. — Pablo Picasso

An artist must forget painting when he paints. That's the only way he will do original work. — Pablo Picasso

I have had no true friends, only lovers. — Pablo Picasso

If you know exactly what you're going to do, what's the good in doing
it? — Pablo Picasso

Inspiration existis, but it has to find us working. — Pablo Picasso

From the point of view of art, there are no concrete or abstract forms, but only forms which are more or less convincing lies. — Pablo Picasso

There are only two types of women: goddesses and doormats. — Pablo Picasso

Drink to me. Drink to my health. You know I can't drink any more. — Pablo Picasso

If one knows exactly what is going to be done, why do it? — Pablo Picasso

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

Lord, protect me from what I want! — Pablo Picasso

I like all paintings. I always look at the paintings, good or bad, in barbershops, furniture stores, provincial hotels. I'm like a drinker who needs wine. As long as it is wine, it doesn't matter which wine. — Pablo Picasso

Reality is to be found in lightness and darkness. — Pablo Picasso

Good taste is the enemy of creativity. — Pablo Picasso

If I like it, I say it's mine. If I don't I say it's a fake. — Pablo Picasso

Forcing yourself to use restricted means is the sort of restraint that liberates invention. It obliges you to make a kind of progress that you can't even imagine in advance. — Pablo Picasso

Painting isn't a question of sensibility; it's a matter of seizing the power, taking over from nature, not expecting her to supply you with information and good advice. — Pablo Picasso

I see for others ... in order to put on canvas the sudden apparitions which come to me. — Pablo Picasso

Enough of Art. It's Art that kills us. People no longer want to do painting: they make art. — Pablo Picasso

Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don't start measuring her limbs. — Pablo Picasso

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. — Pablo Picasso

I am only a public entertainer who understands his time. — Pablo Picasso

There's nothing worse than a brilliant beginning. — Pablo Picasso

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. — Pablo Picasso

Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter? — Pablo Picasso

The artist spends the first part of his life with the dead, the second with the living, and the third with himself. — Pablo Picasso

What I capture in spite of myself interests me more than my own ideas. — Pablo Picasso

Why should I copy this owl, this sea urchin? Why should I try to imitate nature? I might just as well try to trace a perfect circle. — Pablo Picasso

The path to youth takes a lifetime. — Pablo Picasso

As an artist, all I need is my paints and brushes - and someone to drag me away when the canvas is done — Pablo Picasso

Different themes inevitably require different methods of expression. This does not imply either evolution or progress; it is a matter of following the idea one wants to express and the way in which one wants to express it. — Pablo Picasso

When German soldiers used to come to my studio and look at my pictures of Guernica, they'd ask 'Did you do this?'. And I'd say, 'No, you did.' — Pablo Picasso

A picture is not thought out and settled beforehand. While it is being done it changes as one's thoughts change. And when it is finished, it still goes on changing, according to the state of mind of whoever is looking at it. A picture lives a life like a living creature, undergoing the changes imposed on us by our life from day to day. This is natural enough, as the picture lives only through the man who is looking at it. — Pablo Picasso

One cannot be a sorcerer all the time. How could one live? — Pablo Picasso

Every time I change wives I should burn the last one. That way I'd be rid of them. They wouldn't be around to complicate my existence. Maybe, that would bring back my youth, too. You kill the woman and you wipe out the past she represents. — Pablo Picasso

Every now and then one paints a picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things. — Pablo Picasso

Nature does many things the way I do, but she hides them! — Pablo Picasso

I have never had time for the idea of searching. Whenever I wanted to express something, I did so without thinking of the past or the future. — Pablo Picasso

If I paint a hammer and sickle people may think it is a representation of Communism, but for me it is only a hammer and sickle. I just want to reproduce the objects for what they are, not for what they mean. — Pablo Picasso

The quality of a painter depends on the amount of past he carries with him. — Pablo Picasso

Titian, Rembrandt and Goya were the great painters. I am only a public clown. — Pablo Picasso

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

Disciples be damned. It's not interesting. It's only the masters that matter. Those who create. — Pablo Picasso

Drawing is a kind of hypnotism: one looks in such a way at the model, that he comes and takes a seat on the paper. — Pablo Picasso

It would be very curious to record by means of photographs, not the stage of the picture, but its metamorphoses. Perhaps one would perceive the path taken by the mind in order to put its dreams into a concrete form. But what is really very curious is to observe that fundamentally the picture does not change, that despite appearances the initial vision remains almost intact. — Pablo Picasso

I'm not a developer; I am. — Pablo Picasso

Age only matters when one is aging. Now that I have arrived at a great age, I might as well be twenty. — Pablo Picasso

Why do you try to understand art? Do you try to understand the song of a bird? — Pablo Picasso

Why assume that to look is to see? — Pablo Picasso

Action is the foundational key to all success. — Pablo Picasso

Action is the fundamental key to success. — Pablo Picasso

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone — Pablo Picasso

When I work I relax; doing nothing or entertaining visitors makes me tired. — Pablo Picasso

It is important to remember that great things have no fear of time. We've got to let go of the idea that what we want to manifest has to be done on our time schedule. — Pablo Picasso

One does a whole painting for one peach and people think just the opposite - that particular peach is but a detail. — Pablo Picasso

He was an Afghan Hound name Kabul. Since him I have had other Afghan Hounds ... Perhaps I am looking for his ghost. He is the only one that I sometimes think about. Often, if he comes in to my mind when I am working, it alters what I do. The nose on the face I am drawing gets longer and sharper. The hair of the woman I am sketching gets longer and fluffy, resting against her cheeks like his ears rested against his head. — Pablo Picasso

The essential in this time of moral poverty is to create enthusiasm. — Pablo Picasso

When I paint a woman in an armchair, the armchair is there to show illness and death-or as a protection. — Pablo Picasso

What do you think an artist is? ... he is a political being, constantly aware of the heart breaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war. — Pablo Picasso

If you don't know what color to take, take black ... — Pablo Picasso

It took me a lifetime. — Pablo Picasso

For me painting is a dramatic action in the course of which reality finds itself split apart — Pablo Picasso

If there were only one truth, you couldn't paint a hundred canvases on the same theme. — Pablo Picasso