Ai Weiwei Quotes
- All Quotes
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This is a decadent era. Its main characteristic is that it’s dependent on lies and cheating. Once it loses this characteristic, it can’t survive for even a day.
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I don’t feel powerful at all. I am still under this kind of detention, and you know, this is kind of a bail. Even yesterday I realized while trying to take care of the baby, at the park, I had been secretly followed and it’s quite fragile. Maybe being powerful means to be fragile.
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China might seem quite successful in its controls, but it has only raised the water level. It’s like building a dam: it thinks there is more water so it will build higher. But every drop of water is still in there. It doesn’t understand how to let the pressure out. It builds up a way to maintain control and push the problem to the next generation.
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The Chinese government only superficially speaks the language of the international community.
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My activism is a part of me. If my art has anything to do with me, then my activism is part of my art.
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I think restrictions are an essential condition in the fight for freedom of expression. It’s also a source for any kind of creativity.
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The world is a sphere, there is no East or West.
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It is better to have a retarded president who respects human values than a clever government without human values.
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I’ve never planned any part of my career-except being an artist. And I was pushed into that corner because I thought being an artist was the only way to have a little freedom.
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I don’t want the next generation to fight the same fight as I did.
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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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Being an artist is more of a mindset, a way of seeing things; it is no longer so much about producing something.
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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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Life is never guaranteed to be safe, so we better use it while we are still in good condition.
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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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Once you’ve tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it. Then, you can be more powerful than a whole country.
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When the mayor of Nagoya denies the Nanjing Massacre, he gets blacklisted by the city of Nanjing. When the government of Sichuan denies 'tofu dregs' construction which caused the collapse of several schools, they get blacklisted by me.
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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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Anyone who cares about truth should avoid not politics, but Olympic lies.
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People always tell me, 'Weiwei, leave the nation, please.' Or 'Live longer and watch them die.' Either leave, or be patient and watch how they die. I really don’t know what I’m going to do.
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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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Choices after waking up: To be true or to lie? To take action or be brainwashed? To be free or be jailed?
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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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What can they do besides exile me or make me disappear? They have no imagination or creativity.