Quotes by Pablo Picasso
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If you give a meaning to certain things in my paintings it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for the painting. I paint the objects for what they are.

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.

This idea of art for art's sake is a hoax.

The secret of many of my deformations -- which many people do not understand -- is that there is an interaction, an intereffect between the lines in a painting: one line attracts the other and at the point of maximum attraction the lines curve in toward the attracting point and form is altered.

When I enter the studio, I leave my body at the door the way the Moslems leave their shoes when they enter the mosque, and I only allow my spirit to go in there and paint.

When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.

The only pictorial matter that is of interest to me is the matter and sentiments brought about by the work itself.

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

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.

When it comes right down to it, all you have is your self. Your Self is a sun with a thousand rays.

The people no longer seek consolation in art. But the refined people, the rich, the idlers seek the new, the extraordinary, the extravagant, the scandalous.

Abstract art is only painting. And what's so dramatic about that? There is no abstract art. One must always begin with something. Afterwards one can remove all semblance of reality; there is no longer any danger as the idea of the object has left an indelible imprint.

Variation does not mean evolution. If an artist varies his mode of expression this only means that he has changed his manner of thinking, and in changing, it might be for the better or it might be for the worse.

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.

You see these thick curtains shut out the daylight: artificial light suits me a great deal better; it's absolutely steady, and much more exciting.

Through education comes understanding. Through understanding comes true appreciation. All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

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

The different styles I have been using in my art must not be seen as an evolution, or as steps towards an unknown ideal of painting. Everything I have ever made was made for the present and with the hope that it would always remain in the present.

If I don't have red, I use blue.

I want to know one thing, what is color?

Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing?

To me there is no past or future in my art. If a work of art cannot live always in the present it must not be considered at all. The art of the Greeks, of the Egyptians, of the great painters who lived in other times, is not an art of the past; perhaps it is more alive today than it ever was.

I am a communist and my painting is a communist painting. But if I were a shoemaker, Royalist or Communist or anything else, I would not necessarily hammer my shoes in any special way to show my politics.

It's always necessary to seek for perfection. Obviously, for us, this word no longer has the same meaning. To me, it means: from one canvas to the next, always go further, further.

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.

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

I draw like other people bite their nails.

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.

Good artists copy; great artists steal.

Museums are just a lot of lies, and the people who make art their business are mostly imposters. We have infected the pictures in museums with all our stupidities, all our mistakes, all our poverty of spirit. We have turned them into petty and ridiculous things.

Cubism is not a reality you can take in your hand. It's more like a perfume, in front of you, behind you, to the sides, the scent is everywhere but you don't quite know where it comes from.

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

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.

I don't say everything, but I paint everything.

The important thing is to create. Nothing else matters; creation is all.

I do not seek. I find.

You mustn't expect me to repeat myself. My past doesn't interest me. I would rather copy others than copy myself. In that way I should at least be giving them something new. I love discovering things.

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.

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

Without great solitude no serious work is possible.

My mother said to me, If you become a soldier, you'll be a general; if you become a monk, you'll end up as the Pope. Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.

Beauty? To me it is a word without sense because I do not know where its meaning comes from nor where it leads to.

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

There are more copies than originals among people.

I don't believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history.

Is there anything more dangerous than sympathetic understanding?

To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow the coup de grace for the painter as well as for the picture.

One must act in painting as in life, directly.

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

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

To make oneself hated is more difficult than to make oneself loved.

The people who make art their business are mostly imposters.

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

You mustn't always believe what I say. Questions tempt you to tell lies, particularly when there is no answer.

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

What is a face, really? Its own photo? Its make-up? 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.

Work is a necessity for man. Man invented the alarm clock.

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

Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.

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

Sculpture is the art of the intelligence.

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

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.

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

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

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

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.

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

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

They ought to put out the eyes of painters as they do goldfinches in order that they can sing better.

If all the ways I have been along were marked on a map and joined up with a line, it might represent a minotaur.

We don't grow older, we grow riper.

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

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

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

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.

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

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.

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.