Ai Weiwei Quotes
- All Quotes
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Nothing. Jail is about nothing. Completely blank.
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Anyone fighting for freedom does not want to totally lose their freedom.
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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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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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A city is a place that can offer maximum freedom. Otherwise it’s incomplete.
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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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Anyone who cares about truth should avoid not politics, but Olympic lies.
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They the government really want to maintain power. At the same time, they refuse to communicate. They refuse to have good intentions. They refuse to be sincere. How can that last?
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You can see China still cannot offer any real value to the world except as cheap labor, manufacturer, and its own so-called stability. Besides that, I don’t see any creative values and creative mind or thinking that can be announced from China. So this is the struggle China has to face in the next decades.
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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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The Chinese government only superficially speaks the language of the international community.
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No outdoor sports can be more elegant than throwing stones at autocracy; no melees can be more exciting than those in cyberspace.
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We need to get out of the old language.
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This does not mean a meteor has fallen. This is the discovery of a star.
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Cities really are mental conditions. Beijing is a nightmare. A constant nightmare.
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I’m an artist who is always looking for what is possible. I’m always looking to extend the boundaries.
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Creativity is part of human nature. It can only be untaught.
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My voice is not for me. Every time I make a sentence I think how many people for how many generations had a voice that no one could hear. At most they will be remembered as numbers; in many cases, even numbers don’t exist.
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Once again, the facts have been erased.
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The 2008 Olympics has created an illusion of China to the public and to the outside world. It is so fantastic, so unreal, that the entire meaning of the games is being distorted.
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The frustration mainly comes from trying to understand what they really want. Also, you cannot understand how can such a large nation maintain its so-called stability by doing something very unlawful. I mean, how can they possibly manage to stabilize the whole social condition by not acting with justice and fairness.
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No autocracy can lead people to believe that they are living in harmony and happiness.
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I think all aesthetic judgments-all the aesthetic choices we are making-are moral choices. They cannot escape the moral dimension in the broader sense. It has to relate to the philosophical understanding of who we are and how so-called 'art and culture' functions in today’s world.
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The Internet changes the structure of society all the time-this massiveness made of individuals.