Ai Weiwei Quotes
- All Quotes
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China has not established the rule of law and thus there is no justice.
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I cannot ever accept the kind of conditions where you can sacrifice someone’s rights.
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People often say I started to become too outspoken after a certain period. It’s all because of the Internet. If we didn’t have this technology I would be same as everybody else. I couldn’t really amplify my voice.
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In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want-not only you, your whole family and all people like you.
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Later I became very involved in writing. I really enjoyed that moment of writing. People would pass around my sentences. That was a feeling I never had before. It was like a bullet out of the gun.
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Consider why the quality of school dinners is declining, even as more and more golf courses are opened.
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Antiques exist as evidence of the cultural tracks we made in the past.
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The language of communication will always need to be renewed.
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I call on people to be 'obsessed citizens,' forever questioning and asking for accountability. That’s the only chance we have today of a healthy and happy life.
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I have no sense of why I lost my freedom and if you do not know how you lost something, how can you protect it?'
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The world is a sphere, there is no East or West.
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I think art certainly is the vehicle for us to develop any new ideas, to be creative, to extend our imagination, to change the current conditions.
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It is absurd that so much money has been wasted on manipulating public opinion, on simulating emotion. This nation is notorious for its ability to make or fake anything cheaply. 'Made-in-China' goods now fill homes around the world. But our giant country has a small problem. We can’t manufacture the happiness of our people.
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Freedom of expression is a very essential condition for me to make any art. Also, it is an essential value for my life. I have to protect this right and also to fight for the possibility.
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The Olympics are an opportunity to redefine the country, but the message is always wrong.
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If Shakespeare were alive today, he might be writing on Twitter.
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They tell us it will be about 'emotions' and 'friendship,' that it will be a night of joy. Who are they kidding?
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You see a Party system that crushes down anybody who has different opinions, who has different ideas in their mind. Simply to have different opinions can cost someone their life. They can be put in jail, they can be silenced, and they can disappear. And the other people would take it, not giving support.
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I see myself not as a leader but as somebody who initiates things or finds the problem or provokes a discussion. You have to be always ready to engage, willing to participate. When events or history happen, you just have to be aware and respond.
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Citizens should bear the responsibility to act.
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Before blogging, I was living in the Middle Ages. Now my feelings for time and space are entirely different.
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Three years after the CCTV headquarters fire in Beijing in February 2009, human skeletons lie forgotten. Is anyone accountable?
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Cover-ups and deception are the nature of this society. Without lies it won’t exist.
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Being an artist is more of a mindset, a way of seeing things; it is no longer so much about producing something.