Choices after waking up: To be true or to lie? To take action or be brainwashed? To be free or be jailed?
AI WEIWEIIf there is no freedom of expression, then the beauty of life is lost. Participation in a society is not an artistic choice, it’s a human need.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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Maybe [success] is because I’m in China and I’m more open. Maybe it’s my independent behavior, or because I participated in certain projects. I have no idea.
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My typical day is I wake up and appreciate that I can still wake up.
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The Internet is the best thing that ever happened to China. It turns us into individuals and also enables us to share our perceptions and feelings. It creates a culture of individualism and exchange even though the real society doesn’t promote it.
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Even if I have hundreds of things to do, the disconnected feeling is still there because it is very hard to find a real purpose of life.
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A lot of the time [in the U.S.], I was thinking about how spending time is always questionable or is always the biggest obstacle in my life.
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We are not on – even just a step away from the most brutal and primitive crudity. To be very crude on those issues, which is always challenges and we always have to look at the situation like a mirror, to draw some understanding.
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I think the government regrets having Sina Weibo, but they cannot shut it down. That would definitely be suicidal.
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The rest of the world understands little about China’s changes and the possibilities and crises that come with them.
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Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it.
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The jobs for 7 million university graduates every year, the immense corruption: Even some Western governments would have to scramble to find solutions to such problems.
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During the days in detention, I thought most about the moon.
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The United States is a melting pot. Like John F. Kennedy said, it’s a nation of immigrants. But Donald Trump wants to build a fence that clearly makes the statement: “You and I are divided.
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I think the pearls – one is a necklace, and another you have five hundred pounds of pearls, which may be one million pearls in a bowl – really show a kind of [society] condition.
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You need a purpose to express yourself, but that expression is its own purpose.
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If a master, a wise and experienced man, wields a great weapon, that’s beautiful. He can serve peace with it. But if someone’s emotions are imbalanced, even if he has the best equipment,
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People who can’t do that don’t get a sense of responsibility. And if you lack a sense of responsibility, you push the blame onto the system.
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Every day I’m learning something new from the practice. It’s very rewarding.
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Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential. Simply put, aside from using one’s imagination – perhaps more importantly – creativity is the power to act.
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China restricts the society’s freedom of speech. The Communist Party imposes these limits because it lacks confidence towards the future and has no ideals.
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Everything is selected by the central government without good judgment or an understanding of culture to make it really safe. They will become nobody to maintain their power and be raised to the next higher level.
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It’s not really an ideology, but a method of control. But China’s problems are not just China’s problems – they’re human problems. Humanity has always worked better when you see it as one.
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You can never know what is and what is not powerful, but you can always find out what the powerful people are scared of.
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[Cultural department] understand nothing but bureaucratic daily affairs. They don’t care about culture.
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I deal with students every day – from China, Germany, the United States, Hong Kong and Taiwan. And I’ve noticed that the Chinese students are the least trained in having a sense of aesthetics.
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There’s no single artwork I even want to mention or that I can even really think about it to have any feeling, to be proud of it.
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These are nonviolent people who have lost their freedom simply because they expressed their ideas….In truth, they are heroes of our time.
AI WEIWEI