“To the media, I have become a symbolic figure, critical of China. According to the government, I am a dangerous threat.”

…photographs are facts, but not necessarily true… The present always surpasses the past, and the future will not care about today.

There are no outdoor sports as graceful as throwing stones at a dictatorship.

If I really have nothing to do, I just watch my cats, take some photos, and go back to my personal blog.

It’s really rubbish that some kind of “technical” learning means you will be a better person because you know this skill better.

The American experience influenced my understanding of individuality, basic human rights, freedom of expression and the rights and responsibilities of citizens.

And who is going to win the competition if U.S. cannot hold a strong ideology? And even the U.S. would’ve lost the ground to win.

This so-called fame or being better off doesn’t really attract me at all.

Otherwise, I think the building can be bigger, larger, and the city can be much more crazy. The problem is the government structure is so deadly stupid, not really solving problems but creating a lot of problems itself every day.

China is at a different stage of development, human rights are violated here much more often. And still, we see improvements even here.

You start to see the society, how it functions, how it works. Then you have a lot of criticism about how it works.

I think optimism is whether you are still exhilarated by life, whether you are curious, whether you still believe there is possibility.

It [success] is really by mistake.

Destroy or build. Crazy or noncrazy. I’m not nostalgic about the old city. I don’t enjoy it that much.

Technology is a liberation. I think the information age probably is the best thing to happen to the human race in human evolution.

Of course, there [in China] has to be chaos. It has to be crazy, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong about it except this government, which is really incapable of doing anything meaningful.

This so-called contemporary art is not a form, but a philosophy of society.

It is not critical knowledge but a risk of the heart which initiates affection and preserves loyalty in our fellow men.

Negative space is important. When I teach students to read critically I advise them to look for what the author isn’t saying just as carefully as for what he or she is.

Faith means the purposeful suspension of critical thinking. It’s nothing to be admired.

The offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years.

I found myself highly critical of any leader who failed to lead by example.

I’m super self-critical, which I think is good, because then I get exactly what I want. I’m critical of other people, too – I try not to be, though.

In critical moments even the very powerful have need of the weakest.

It’s time for reflection, time to analyse the ups and downs because critical thinking is the only way to improve.