Ai Weiwei Quotes
- All Quotes
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The biggest crime of a dictatorship is to eradicate human feelings from people.
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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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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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The government computer has one button: delete.
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Tax crimes should be investigated by the tax bureau, not through secret police detention.
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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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I came to art because I wanted to escape the other regulations of the society. The whole society is so political. But the irony is that my art becomes more and more political.
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I have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself.
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I often ask myself if I am afraid of being detained again. I love freedom as much as anybody else, maybe more than most. But it is a tragedy to live your life in fear. It is worse than actually losing your freedom.
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Anyone who cares about truth should avoid not politics, but Olympic lies.
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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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I think China is in a chaos now and it could be more chaos. It’s an orderly chaos. It’s a party that ruthlessly violates every human’s basic rights to serve its own purpose.'
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You’re in total isolation. And you don’t know how long you’re going to be there, but you truly believe they can do anything to you. There’s no way to even question it. You’re not protected by anything. Why am I here? Your mind is very uncertain of time. You become like mad. It’s very hard for anyone. Even for people who have strong beliefs.
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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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I lost all connection with the outside world and was immersed in a world of darkness. I was scared that my existence would fade silently. No one knew where I was, and no one would ever know. I was just like a small soybean-once fallen to the ground, it rolls into a crack in the corner. Being unable to make any sounds, it will forever be forgotten.
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Tips on surviving the regime: Respect yourself and speak for others. Do one small thing every day to prove the existence of justice.
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They all ask: Why? Why is it that this man’s name Ai Weiwei can never be typed on a Chinese computer or the whole sentence will disappear?
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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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We should leave behind discrimination, because it is narrow-minded and ignorant, denies contact and warmth, and corrodes mankind’s belief that we can better ourselves. The only way to avoid misunderstanding, war, and bloodshed is to defend freedom of expression and to communicate with sincerity, concern, and good intentions.
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Overturning police cars is a super-intense workout. It’s probably the only sport I enjoy.
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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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We need to get out of the old language.
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Cities really are mental conditions. Beijing is a nightmare. A constant nightmare.