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.
AI WEIWEIIf artists cannot speak up for human dignity or rights, then who else will do it?
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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Of course, there [in China] has to be chaos. It has to be crazy, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong about it except this government, which is really incapable of doing anything meaningful.
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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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I grew up in a desert, which has no kind of imagination.
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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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I think everybody deserves freedom. Freedom is such an abstract word, but it’s all we need.
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Today, we jump into this globalization of the economy and the internet age.
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A few thousand are to be built in the next few years, all using taxpayer money. But there is no system, no research, no content, no good programs, no good managers.
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The leadership knows that you cannot solve the issues of China’s future with the means of the past. The demographic consequences of the one-child policy, the build-up of the welfare state.
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It is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that. There are crises and emergencies all the time, we might not even be aware of some. But I am afraid we’ll have to wait and observe precisely what the government is up to.
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Whenever there is injustice, there is tension. But in China it is very hard to release your anger unless you burn yourself or you jump from a bridge. In a society where there is no freedom of the press, it is difficult for victims to be noticed.
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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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I also doubt a man can give really clear reasons for anything.
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Everything is art. Everything is politics.
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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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I think my stance and my way of life is my most important art.
AI WEIWEI