I think our minds respond to things beyond this world. Take beauty: it’s a very mysterious thing, isn’t it?
AGNES MARTINWhat we really want to do is serve happiness. We want everyone to be happy, never unhappy even for a moment. We want the animals to be happy.
More Agnes Martin Quotes
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The artist works by awareness of his own state of mind.
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When I first made a grid I happened to be thinking of the innocence of trees and then this grid came into my mind and I thought it represented innocence, and I still do, and so I painted it and then I was satisfied. I thought, this is my vision.
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What we really want to do is serve happiness. We want everyone to be happy, never unhappy even for a moment. We want the animals to be happy.
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I used to meditate until I learned to stop thinking.
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You must find the things that you do like. The things that are acceptable to your mind.
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The enormous pitfall is devotion to oneself instead of to life. All works that are self-devoted are absolutely ineffective.
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Fulfill your potential. That’s the way to happiness.
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The worst thing you can think about when you’re working is yourself.
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I would like my work to be recognized as being in the classical tradition (Coptic, Egyptian, Greek, Chinese), as representing the Ideal in the mind. Classical art cannot possibly be eclectic.
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I think everyone sees beauty. Art is a way to respond
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My paintings are certainly nonobjective. They’re just horizontal lines.
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There’s not any hint of nature. And still everybody responds, I think.
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What I say is that we’re capable of a transcendent response, and I think it makes us happy. And I do think beauty produces a transcendent response.
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To progress in life you must give up the things you do not like.
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Doing what you were born to do … That’s the way to be happy.
AGNES MARTIN






