“No state or society can claim to have established human rights once and for all.”

I think to deal with the situation like human crisis, 65 million people being displaced, lost their home, and with such human tragedy, has to make every level of society to be conscious and to be alert about the situation.

I spent a lot of time standing on street corners [of New York City] talking to local residents. I spent time in bookstores and galleries. But most of the time, I really did not have much to do.

A nation like China has become one of the biggest production fields for exporting cheap labor, which also re-questions our history and past, re-questions human desire, and the human illusions of the past.

Now I’ve come to such a mixed culture: America, Europe, South America, Africa. And the politics are changing everywhere all the time and becoming even more unpredictable.

I always want to design a frame that’s open to everyone. I don’t see art as a secret code.

This is a very general understanding of art in China, that being an artist can make you money and turn you into a star.

To work in architecture you are so much involved with society, with politics, with bureaucrats. It’s a very complicated process to do large projects.

If a nation cannot face its past, it has no future.

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,

Even though everybody who looked at me would call me a Chinese artist, that’s the 1980s. New York in the ’80s was not so interesting.

I think the government regrets having Sina Weibo, but they cannot shut it down. That would definitely be suicidal.

Life is much more interesting when you make a little bit of effort.

And the kind of condition he had when he was in this society – the kind of mistreatment society gave him.

I think Donald Trump should cool down a little bit. To pay more attention to the history. To really understand what U.S.’s value is about. I think, as a president, those things you always have to ask.

As long as I can communicate, I’m not so lonely. If I cannot travel, or do art, or have company, if they take away all my belongings, it doesn’t matter at all.

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.

Impatience and stupidity claim more victims than any weapon.

We are free to say that in respect to political rights, we hold women to be justly entitled to all we claim for men.

For all the claims that we now live in a society free of racism, the tragedies that presently overwhelm us are a stiff dose of reality.

The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle.

It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane.

If absolute truth belongs to anyone in this world, it certainly does not belong to the man or party that claims to possess it.

Whoever claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the right to treat human beings as chattel.

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.