Creativity Quote by Pablo Picasso

Picasso doesn’t just defend influence; he weaponizes it. “To copy others is necessary” sounds like a concession to craft: every artist starts as a magpie, stealing techniques, compositional tricks, even whole attitudes from the people who came before. It’s pragmatic, almost generous. You’re allowed to be derivative on the way to becoming yourself. The turn comes fast and cruel: “to copy oneself is pathetic.” Now imitation isn’t a beginner’s problem but a veteran’s sin, the moment you turn your own past into a template and call it a career.

The intent is partly self-mythmaking, partly a warning shot. Picasso lived through multiple reinventions (Blue Period melancholy, Rose Period warmth, Cubism’s fracture, later flamboyant variations), and he built a brand on perpetual mutation. The subtext: repetition is not stability, it’s surrender. Once the public rewards a “Picasso look,” the market starts asking for sequels, not risks. Copying others can be a rung on the ladder; copying yourself is staying on the rung because it sells.

Context matters: modernism treated originality like oxygen, and Picasso helped set that standard. He also knew the hypocrisy baked into it. He famously “borrowed” from Iberian sculpture and African masks; his genius wasn’t purity but transformation. So the line doubles as a backhanded justification: theft is acceptable if it produces new language; self-plagiarism is unforgivable because it produces comfort. It’s a brutal definition of artistic dignity: progress over consistency, danger over applause.