The importance of elections, transparency, legal procedures, an independent army, and the judicial system is not regarded as highly in China. These core values are the most important evidence of the health of a society, quality of life, and security.
AI WEIWEIThe misconception of totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned. This is not the case. When you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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What is important is that we actively express our thoughts and wishes, in every realm that we can access.
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It’s really rubbish that some kind of “technical” learning means you will be a better person because you know this skill better.
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They lack any ability to sense what is beautiful or what is proper. They can be learned and skillful, but they lack the ability to make their own free judgment. It is really sad to see young adults of 20, 25 years who were never taught to make their own decisions.
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It’s just a way you have to set up some kind of activities to follow your instincts or your curiosities.
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Of course, most luxury goods in China are for corrupted officials and their relatives. And that made China become the biggest luxury-goods market.
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We should also leave behind discrimination, because it is narrow-minded and ignorant, denies contact and warmth; and corrodes mankind’s belief that we can better ourselves.
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It’s very essential values that we all have to protect. But in Chinese society, people are giving up on protecting these values.
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Any politician who respects China’s government should tell it openly what is in his heart. It is disrespectful to keep quiet about such issues – both vis-a-vis the government and the people concerned.
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If there’s the right condition, I always want to express the concept or ideas in a very independent way.
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You know about the fantasies related to the classics, but there is no real discussion about today’s life and no discussion of the real conditions – which is really sickening.
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If artists cannot speak up for human dignity or rights, then who else will do it?
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The freedom of speech is an important yardstick for a society’s level of civilization.
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Somehow, we [ Tan Dun and director Chen Kaige] were all privileged at the time; we could be outside of China. But at the moment, we had no sense of what the future was going to be like.
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Even if there have been setbacks during these past years, China is changing. China’s society is opening.
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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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