“Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.”

—  Pablo Picasso

Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Art is the elimination of the unnecessary." by Pablo Picasso?
Pablo Picasso photo
Pablo Picasso128
Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stag… 1881–1973

Related quotes

Marcus Aurelius photo

“Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you'll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?” But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Hays translation
Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book IV, 24

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

As quoted in Zen and the Art of Stand-up Comedy (1998) by Jay Sankey
1970s and later

“My obligation is to focus on the priorities of classroom instruction, parental involvement and student safety, targeting student performance and eliminating unnecessary administrative costs.”

John R. Leopold (1943) politician

Hometown Annapolis - County Executive Leopold's FY08 Budget Address http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/2007/05_02-02/TOP

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. photo

“Motion study is the science of eliminating wastefulness resulting from using unnecessary, ill-directed, and inefficient motions. The aim of motion study is to find and perpetuate the scheme of least waste methods of labor.
By its use we have revolutionized several of the trades. There is probably no art or trade that cannot have its output doubled by the application of the principles of motion study.”

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. (1868–1924) American industrial engineer

Source: Primer of scientific management, 1912, p. 8

Taylor Caldwell photo

“To eliminate sex from a book is to eliminate the great creative force in the world. Out of the sexual instinct rises all the art, you know. … No eunuch ever wrote a book.”

Taylor Caldwell (1900–1985) Novelist

1970s-, The Captains, the Kings, and Taylor Caldwell (1978)

Neelie Kroes photo

“Art enriches itself by eliminating artificial barriers between people such as borders between countries.”

Neelie Kroes (1941) Dutch politician

"A digital world of opportunities" http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/10/619, Forum d'Avignon

Lin Yutang photo

“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: As quoted in Pearls of Wisdom: A Harvest of Quotations From All Ages (1987) by Jerome Agel and Walter D. Glanze, p. 46. From The Importance of Living: "besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone" (p. 162), "the wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials" (p. 10).

Clive Staples Lewis photo

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Four Loves

The Four Loves (1960)

Ze'ev Jabotinsky photo

“Eliminate the Diaspora, or the Diaspora will surely eliminate you.”

Ze'ev Jabotinsky (1880–1940) Jewish leader

Tisha B'av (1937).

“If you eliminate all the words of a subject, you have eliminated the subject.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Language Education in a Knowledge Context (1980)
Context: As one learns the language of a subject, one is also learning what the subject is.... what we call a subject consists mostly, if not entirely, of its language. If you eliminate all the words of a subject, you have eliminated the subject.

Related topics