I think you can give meaning to any condition; you can be poor or unsuccessful or be so-called successful. But I don’t think that it would give an individual human being a better condition.
AI WEIWEIMany people are going to use [Beijing National Stadium], which makes it more meaningful. If we don’t design it, somebody else has to design it.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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A society is healthy only when it allows its members to discuss their thoughts openly. This is also the only way that a society can gather consensus, let everyone express his or her wish, and foster creativity.
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We literally lived underground. We dug a hole and lived there for years. My father cleaned public toilets, even though he was a highly respected poet.
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This so-called fame or being better off doesn’t really attract me at all.
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There are no outdoor sports as graceful as throwing stones at a dictatorship.
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This week, the world gathers in Beijing for the 2008 Olympic games. This is the extraordinary moment China has been dreaming of for 100 years.
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If human rights are supposed to have any meaning, then they have to be discussed openly.
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For years, I refused to go to any openings, not even my own.
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I’m just bringing them to Kassel to see the art show, and pay their room and board.
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What counts in the end is what the government does.
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I have people working together, doing different things: architecture, art installation, photography, publishing, and curatorial works and design.
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Even today the borders they’re seeing the physical borders are very different from the political borders. Because all those powers are so connected, and you cannot even see whose interest in what move.
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The Internet changes the structure of society all the time — this massiveness made of individuals.
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The society was so different [in China] – it was a feudalistic society. It didn’t come to a point of industrial revolution until twenty years ago.
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Every day I’m learning something new from the practice. It’s very rewarding.
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I wouldn’t say I’ve become more radical: I was born radical.
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Life is never guaranteed to be safe, so we better use it while we are still in good condition.
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They see how dramatic U.S. has to be put this kind of shame on its own – cannot handle the situation. Or show such a difficulty with this liberal ideas. Men or women created equal. And to defend those very essential ideas.
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Liberty is about the right to question everything.
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Censorship is saying: “I’m the one who says the last sentence. Whatever you say, the conclusion is mine.” But the internet is like a tree that is growing.
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The IT people who have made such an effort to know and understand computer technology. They are frustrated that you cannot use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in China. They are the first to recognize that the situation is terrible.
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In this kind of dictatorship, in this kind of totalitarian society, it is easy to make deals that you cannot make in a democratic society.
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I spend a lot of time talking to journalists.
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They very often just try to cope with their own election, their own popularity, solving the problem or selling the ideas to meet their own voters. By doing that, it creates a great imbalance in terms of making deals or treaty or all those things.
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The Internet has established a public sphere and developed a pressure which the government can no longer ignore.
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If I really have nothing to do, I just watch my cats, take some photos, and go back to my personal blog.
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I have to find a place for my own. I have to search for my own happiness.
AI WEIWEI