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Who really said it

The urge to destroy is also a creative urge

Not Picasso — actually Mikhail Bakunin Mikhail Bakunin 1814–1876 · Russian revolutionary & founding anarchist theorist
Disputed Free to reuse

Pablo Picasso never wrote this. The line closes Bakunin’s 1842 essay “The Reaction in Germany,” whose standard English rendering is “The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!” The familiar “urge to destroy… creative urge” wording is a later popular paraphrase, and the Picasso credit is a modern error — boosted when Banksy captioned his 2018 shredding stunt with the line “from Picasso.”

Last verified 8 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“The urge to destroy is also a creative urge” Mikhail Bakunin, "The Reaction in Germany" (1842). Popularly paraphrased as "The urge to destroy is also a creative urge" and often misattributed to Pablo Picasso.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Pablo Picasso. Use the credit shown above instead.

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In context

Evoking the world of Mikhail Bakunin — Russian revolutionary anarchist & political philosopher. Theme: "The urge to destroy is also a creative urge". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "The urge to destroy is also a creative urge". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where it really comes from

Work
The Reaction in Germany (Die Reaktion in Deutschland. Ein Fragment von einem Franzosen)
Published
October 1842, in Arnold Ruge’s Deutsche Jahrbücher für Wissenschaft und Kunst, under the pseudonym “Jules Elysard”
Author
Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)
Standard translation
“The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!” — popularly paraphrased as “The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.”

Let us therefore trust the eternal Spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternal source of all life. The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!

The closing lines of Bakunin’s essay, in the standard English translation. The “urge to destroy… creative urge” version widely pinned on Picasso is a loose paraphrase of this sentence.

Bakunin, “The Reaction in Germany” (1842) at Marxists.org

The paper trail

  • The full text ends on the line “The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!” in Bakunin’s 1842 essay “The Reaction in Germany” ↗, first published under the pseudonym Jules Elysard.
  • Wikiquote ↗ gives the sourced wording as “The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!” and notes it is “often paraphrased as, ‘The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.’”
  • The Picasso credit spread widely after Banksy captioned his 2018 Sotheby’s shredding video with the line as “a… quote from Picasso,” per MyArtBroker ↗.
Public domain

The line comes from Bakunin’s essay first published in October 1842; Bakunin died in 1876, so the original German text and its early English translations are long in the public domain in the United States. The specific popular one-liner is a loose modern paraphrase of that public-domain sentence rather than a distinct copyrighted work.

Fact-check

How it landed on Picasso

This is one of the internet’s cleanest cases of a radical’s line being laundered into an artist’s aphorism. The thought is Bakunin’s; the Picasso tag is a 20th- and 21st-century invention.

Pablo Picasso chronologically impossible

Picasso was born in 1881 — five years after Bakunin died in 1876 — and the sentence predates him by nearly four decades, closing Bakunin’s 1842 essay “The Reaction in Germany” ↗. No Picasso text is ever cited as a source.

Banksy (2018) spread the error

When Banksy’s “Girl with Balloon” self-shredded at Sotheby’s in October 2018, his video was captioned with the line as “a… quote from Picasso” — a caption seen by millions, per MyArtBroker ↗.

“The urge to destroy is also a creative urge” paraphrase

The sourced translation is “The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!” Wikiquote ↗ records the “urge to destroy” form explicitly as a paraphrase, not Bakunin’s (translator’s) exact words.

The idea — and the sentence — belong to Mikhail Bakunin’s 1842 essay “The Reaction in Germany” ↗, not to Pablo Picasso.

Context

Why it mattered

Bakunin wrote the essay in 1842 as a young Hegelian, and the closing line distills his lifelong conviction that tearing down old orders is itself an act of creation — the germ of the anarchism he would spend his life building.

The sentence outlived its author as a slogan: it reappeared as wall graffiti during the May 1968 revolt in Paris and, decades later, as Banksy’s caption for a self-destroying artwork — the moment that most firmly (and wrongly) welded it to Picasso’s name.

The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Creativity Change

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

The Reaction in Germany (full text)marxists.org

Bakunin’s 1842 essay in English; the quote is its final sentence.
Mikhail Bakunin — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Sourced wording plus a note that “urge to destroy” is a paraphrase.
The Reaction in Germanytheanarchistlibrary.org

Full essay with editorial notes on its 1842 publication as Jules Elysard.
Bakunin: The Creative Passion (Mark Leier)textbase.scriptorium.ro

Biography chapter on the line and its history.
The Banksy Shred: Five Years in the Marketmyartbroker.com

Documents Banksy’s 2018 caption crediting the line to Picasso.

The true author

Who really wrote it

Mikhail Bakunin

1814–1876 · Russian revolutionary anarchist & political philosopher

Mikhail Bakunin was a Russian revolutionary and one of the founding theorists of collectivist anarchism, later Karl Marx’s great rival in the First International. The line closes his first major political essay, “The Reaction in Germany” (1842), written while he was a young Left Hegelian in Dresden. Its fusion of destruction and creation became a rallying cry for later radicals — famously resurfacing as graffiti in the 1968 Paris uprising.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Mikhail Bakunin [as “Jules Elysard”], “Die Reaktion in Deutschland. Ein Fragment von einem Franzosen,” Deutsche Jahrbücher für Wissenschaft und Kunst, nos. 247–51 (October 1842); trans. “The Reaction in Germany,” closing line: “The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!”

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The urge to destroy is also a creative urge’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-urge-to-destroy-is-also-a-creative-urge

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