57 Famous Pablo Picasso Quotes About Life (ART)

11 Best Inspirational Pablo Picasso Quotes on Art and Creativity

Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.

Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen. — Painting is a blind man’s profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen.

Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.

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

If you don’t know what color to take, take black.

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth. — Art is the lie that enables us to realize the **truth**.

I paint objects as I think them not as I see them.

Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.

46 Motivational Pablo Picasso Quotes on the Color of Life and Your Inner Genius (SUCCESS)

“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”
Pablo Picasso

Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.

Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility. — **Success** is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility.

Unless your work gives you trouble, it is no good.

The chief enemy of creativity is 'good' sense. — The chief enemy of creativity is ‘good’ sense.

Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.

Every positive value has its price in negative terms… the genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima. — Every positive value has its price in negative terms… the genius of **Einstein** leads to Hiroshima.

“My mother said to me, ‘If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.’ Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.”
Pablo Picasso

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. — The meaning of life is to find your gift. The **purpose of life** is to give it away.

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.

He can who thinks he can, and he can’t who thinks he can’t. This is an inexorable, indisputable law.

Accidents, try to change them – it’s impossible. The accidental reveals man. — Accidents, try to **change** them – it’s impossible. The accidental reveals man.

Action is the foundational key to all success. — **Action** is the foundational key to all **success**.

What one does is what counts and not what one had the intention of doing.

Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness.

“The artist is a receptacle for 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

To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic.

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

It takes a very long time to become young.

I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money. — I’d like to live as a poor man with lots of **money**.

The older you get the stronger the wind gets - and it's always in your face. — The older you get the stronger the wind gets – and it’s always in your face.

“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

Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.

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

The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.

If I paint a wild horse, you might not see the horse… but surely you will see the wildness!

The world doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do? — The world doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?

“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

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

Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar. — Everything is a **miracle**. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.

It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.

“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

Give me a museum and I'll fill it. — Give me a museum and I’ll fill it.

Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.

To draw, you must close your eyes and sing.

“It has often been said that an artist should work for himself, for the love of art, and scorn success. It’s a false idea. An artist needs success. Not only in order to live, but primarily so that he can realize his work.”
Pablo Picasso

Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the songs of a bird?

An idea is a point of departure and no more. As soon as you elaborate it, it becomes transformed by thought.

Of course, you can paint pictures by matching up different parts of them so that they go nicely together, but they’ll lack any kind of drama.

“In my case a picture is a sum of destructions. I do a picture, then I destroy it. But in the long run nothing is lost; the red that I took away from one place turns up somewhere else.”
Pablo Picasso

It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.

People want to find a meaning in everything and everyone. That’s the disease of our age.

If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes.

People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree.

“Whenever I wanted to say something, I said it the way I believed I should. 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

Pablo Ruiz Picasso Short Biography

Born on 25 October 1881, in Malaga, Spain, Pablo Ruiz Picasso is known as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.

Picasso started drawing as a child and was his father’s pupil at the age of 10. He held his very first exhibition at 13.

In 1895 he entered Escola de La Llotja, an art school in Barcelona, and two years later he moved to Madrid and enrolled in the Royal Academy of San Fernando. Here he found the teachings foolish and started observing the city and its museums to gain inspiration instead.

Throughout his life as a painter, Picasso had many different painting styles, but arguably his most famous work was his depiction of the German bombing of Guernica which took place during the Spanish Civil War. The painting, entitled Guernica, was exhibited in July 1937 and was painted in the style of Cubism.

In World War II, Picasso focused on writing poetry as an alternative outlet. Picasso had amassed 300 poems in his lifetime.

Pablo Picasso has made major contributions to Symbolism and Surrealism and several of his paintings are considered some of the most expensive paintings in the world.

Further Reading:

10 Surprising Facts About Pablo Picasso – My Modern Met
Pablo Picasso on the Myth of Overnight Success – Thrive Global
Pablo Picasso: How One Spanish Artist Changed Art Forever – Park West Gallery
Picasso’s Advice for Aspiring Artists – Cultura Colectiva

Here are the best Pablo Picasso quotes so you can develop your craft and maximize your talent to create awe-inspiring artwork.

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**Pablo Picasso: 1881-1973 (Big Series Art)**

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Pablo Ruiz Picasso Short Biography

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