Ai Weiwei Quotes
- All Quotes
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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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Cover-ups and deception are the nature of this society. Without lies it won’t exist.
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I am always trying to find how to get the message through. In Munich we custom-made five thousand backpacks like the ones of those students who died in Sichuan to construct a simple sentence spoken by the mother of a dead student. It was: 'She has been happily living in this world for seven years.'
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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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To express yourself needs a reason, but expressing yourself is the reason.
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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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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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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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Tax crimes should be investigated by the tax bureau, not through secret police detention.
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Block my blog if you want, but I cannot self-censor, because that is the only reason I have the blog. We both know this is a game. You have to play your part, and I have to play mine.
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The great success of this system is that it makes the general public afraid of taking responsibility, afraid of taking a position or giving a definite answer, or even of making mistakes.
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The Internet is uncontrollable. And if the Internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It’s as simple as that.
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To protect the right of expression is the central part of an artist’s activity. . . . . In China many essential rights are lacking, and I wanted to remind people of this.
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Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it. I don’t feel that much anger. I equally have a lot of joy.
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I don’t have this concept that separates my art from my daily life. They are one thing to me. They are always one. How do you find the way to express yourself and how to communicate with others?
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Expressing oneself is like a drug. I’m so addicted to it.
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It is as difficult for Chinese politicians to get a real smile from the people as it is to keep the sky blue and clouds white.
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They just don’t trust people. They don’t trust individuals, they don’t trust any change that should serve and benefit people, and they try to stop it.
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A fine line separates Chinese intellectuals and professors from the political gangsters who protect them.
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The art always wins. Anything can happen to me, but the art will stay.
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I spend very little time just doing ''art as art.'
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Anyone fighting for freedom does not want to totally lose their freedom.
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I think I have this responsibility to my father’s generation, and especially future generations.
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A city is a place that can offer maximum freedom. Otherwise it’s incomplete.