Quotes from Pablo Picasso

Sculpture is the best comment that a painter can make on painting.

When you start with a portrait and search for a pure form, a clear volume, through successive eliminations, you arrive inevitably at the egg. Likewise, starting with the egg and following the same process in reverse, one finishes with the portrait.

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

When I die, it will be a shipwreck, and as when a huge ship sinks, many people all around will be sucked down with it.

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.

What is conserved in the ground? Stone, bronze, ivory, bone, sometimes pottery. Never wood objects, no fabric or skins. That completely skews our notions about primitive man.

I'd like to live like a poor man with a lot of money.

I want to live like a poor man with lots of money.

I'd like to live like a poor man - only with lots of money.

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.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

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

Music and art are the guiding lights of the world.

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

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

You cannot go against nature. She is stronger than the strongest of men. We can permit ourselves some liberties, but in details only.

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.

Through art we express our conception of what nature is not.

If everyone would paint, political re-education would be unnecessary.

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

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

I'm always doing things I can't do. That's how I get to do them.

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.

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things.