I have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself.
AI WEIWEIThe 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.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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The American experience influenced my understanding of individuality, basic human rights, freedom of expression and the rights and responsibilities of citizens.
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To experience poetry is to see over and above reality. It is to discover that which is beyond the physical, to experience another life and another level of feeling.
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Nationality and borders are barriers to our intelligence, to our imagination and to all kinds of possibilities.
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There are no outdoor sports as graceful as throwing stones at a dictatorship.
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I don’t think China has professional museums – not in the past, present, or near future.
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Creativity is part of human nature. It can only be untaught.
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[Therefore] holding a trial outside the court. I think that is fairness, that is justice, that is a civil society. Otherwise call it an evil society because everything is hidden.
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Your own acts tell the world who you are and what kind of society you think it should be.
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That’s why the country can’t face up to open competition – unless it resorts to measures like North Korea.
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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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If a nation cannot face its past, it has no future.
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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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Of course, people will call you an old artist or young artist, which is just a character of you.
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So, the politicians and the people who make decisions very often is the one we think can make some difference. But of course they will not make a difference if the citizens or the individuals not push it or not to speak out, to possess a very strong voice about, this is not acceptable.
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Growing up, my family was an enemy of the state. I have experienced more disappointment than joy, much more sad stories or desperate conditions.
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[Shanghai Biennale] has been my attitude for as long as I’ve been practicing art and other cultural-related activities.
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Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.
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You start to see the society, how it functions, how it works. Then you have a lot of criticism about how it works.
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At the moment about 350,000 students return to China from abroad each year – 350,000 young and educated people. I know about them because they know me and often ask me in the street if they can take a selfie with me.
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There’s no such thing as “fixed” culture. China is also becoming more global. Its problems are becoming international problems, becoming German problems, becoming American problems.
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Now you have the equal opportunity to equip yourself through information and knowledge and express yourself as an independent mind.
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Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it.
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I’m doing quite a few things now. In one day, I will go to Kassel, Germany, for a documentary project I’ve been preparing for half a year.
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The practice of photography is no longer a means for recording reality. Instead, it has become reality itself
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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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People have a tendency to become elite rather than to care about the general conditions of the society, which makes me sick. It’s an unbearable condition.
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