"Art is the lie that enables us..." - Quote by Pablo Picasso

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

“It isn't up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words! The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them.”

“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.”

“It vexes me greatly that having to earn my living has forced me to interrupt the work and to attend to small matters.”

“Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.”

“The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart.”

“It is so difficult to draw a clear line of separation between the abuse and the wholesome use of the press, that as yet we have found it better to trust the public judgment, rather than the magistrate, with the discrimination between truth and falsehood. And hitherto the public judgment has performed that office with wonderful correctness.”

“Completely true to nature!' - what a lie: / How could nature ever be constrained into a picture? / The smallest bit of nature is infinite! / And so he paints what he likes about it. / And what does he like? He likes what he can paint!”

“The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.”