Ai Weiwei Quotes
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A society that has no ideals, that discards the principles of humanitarianism, that abandons the fundamental rights and dignity of humanity, can only survive by denying truth, fairness and justice.
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I feel powerless all the time, but I regain my energy by making a very small difference that won’t cost me much.
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My work has always been political, because the choice of being an artist is political in China.
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I think my stance and my way of life is my most important art.
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My messages are temporary and shouldn’t be our permanent condition. And like the wind it will pass. We’ll have another wind coming.
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Any power or structure that seeks to maintain full control and is not open in any way to loosening its power eventually makes itself ridiculous.
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If there is no freedom of expression, then the beauty of life is lost. Participation in a society is not an artistic choice, it’s a human need.
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Do they want me to stay? Do they want me to leave? Do they want me to hang myself? To kill myself? What do they want?
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The Internet is the best thing that could have happened to China.
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I always have an attitude. Even if there are no plans, I have an attitude. Perhaps I answered imprecisely before, saying that I am just a person. I am actually a person with an attitude.
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There is no revolution like the Communist revolution. You simply burn all the books, kill all of the thinking people and use the poor proletariat to create a very simple benchmark to gauge social change.
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If a nation cannot face its past, it has no future.
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I definitely know people who are shameless enough to give up basic values. I see this kind of art, and when I see it I feel ashamed. In China they treat art as some form of decoration, a self-indulgence. It is pretending to be art. It looks like art. It sells like art. But it is really a piece of shit.'
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Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward.
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I will never leave China, unless I am forced to. Because China is mine. I will not leave something that belongs to me in the hands of people I do not trust.
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My blog is an extension of my thinking. Why should I deform my thinking simply because I live under a government that espouses an ideology which I believe to be totally against humanity?
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Without freedom of speech, there is no modern world, just a barbaric one.
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They know too many things they should not know and they do not know some things they need to know.
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Nothing can silence me as long as I am alive. I don’t give any kind of excuse. If I cannot come out of China or I cannot go in to China this is not going to change my belief. But when I am there, I am in this condition: I see it, I see people who need help. Then you know, I just want to offer my possibility to help them.
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Contemporary art and the Communist Party are an impossible situation. It’s like oil and water-they can never mix.
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A small act is worth a million thoughts.
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I’m so fearful, that’s not fearless... I act more brave because I know the danger’s really there. If you don’t act, the danger becomes stronger.
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The government may be made up of clever, sensible people. But if they do not believe in basic human values, the more clever or shrewd they are the greater the tragedy they will create.
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They have to have an enemy. They have to create you as their enemy in order for them to continue their existence. It’s very ironic.