Ai Weiwei Quotes
- All Quotes
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Neither fairness nor justice, neither reality nor humanity can be simulated or manipulated by wires or remote controls.
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I don’t really care that much about if I want to be more successful or less successful in art, because I never think life and art should be separate. What’s life if you don’t have conversation and joy and anger?
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The world is not changing if you don’t shoulder the burden of responsibility.
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Only with the Internet can a peasant I have never met hear my voice and I can learn what’s on his mind. A fairy tale has come true.
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I also have to speak out for people around me who are afraid, who think it is not worth it or who have totally given up hope. So I want to set an example: you can do it and this is okay, to speak out.
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Police in China can do whatever they want; after 81 days in arbitrary detention you clearly realise that they don’t have to obey their own laws.
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The government computer has one button: delete.
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Art is not an end but a beginning.
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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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Citizens should bear the responsibility to act.
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Freedom of speech implies the world isn’t defined. It is meaningful when people are allowed to see the world their way.
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The officials want China to be seen as a cultured, creative nation, but in this anti-liberal political society everything outside the direct control of the state is seen as a potential threat.
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It’s hard to recover. You become not so innocent. You become, in a way, more sophisticated, which I think you shouldn’t. We should all have more simple happiness . . . . You become bitter.
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What can they do besides exile me or make me disappear? They have no imagination or creativity.
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Antiques exist as evidence of the cultural tracks we made in the past.
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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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It doesn’t matter where I am-China will stay in me. I don’t know how far I can still walk on this road and what is the limit.
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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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I am very much interested in the so-called useless object. I mean, it takes perfect craftsmanship, beautiful material carefully measured and crafted, but at the same time it’s really useless.
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Chairman Mao was the first in the world to use Twitter. All his quotations are within 140 words.
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I always want to design a frame that’s open to everyone. I don’t see art as a secret code.
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Cover-ups and deception are the nature of this society. Without lies it won’t exist.
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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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One of the reasons religions are widely accepted is spiritual laziness and its resulting fear.