Many 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.
AI WEIWEII have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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I think I’m just a traveler. When you walk across a river and there’s no bridge, you build one. I’m used to having to deal with Chinese Communist ideology.
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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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For years, I refused to go to any openings, not even my own.
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The museums used to be exhibition halls for government propaganda, and now every city wants to build a museum.
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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 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.
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They’ve become part of a conspiracy, collaborators of the crime, which is lying to the general public and trying to hide the kind of criminal acts happening in many cases.
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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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There isn’t a single Chinese university that can invite me to give a talk. Even though I know there are many students who would like to hear what I have to say.
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I don’t think I was very structured in that society and I don’t really believe in personal success, which most Americans believe in.
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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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Technology is a liberation. I think the information age probably is the best thing to happen to the human race in human evolution.
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Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.
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Behind every political deal in this country, the first casualties are always the ordinary people, who are barely treated as human.
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China is at a different stage of development, human rights are violated here much more often. And still, we see improvements even here.
AI WEIWEI