Ai Weiwei Quotes (218 quotes, page 4) | Quotes of famous people

Jones, Alice. “ Ten People Who Changed the World: Ai Weiwei, Chinese Artist, Became a Truly Global Force http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/ten-people-who-changed-the-world-ai-weiwei-chinese-artist-became-a-truly-global-force-6282327.html.” Independent, December 31, 2011.
2010-, 2011

Art , Time

“At midnight they can come into your room and take you away. They can put a black hood on you, take you to a secret place and interrogate you, trying to stop what you’re doing. They threaten people, your family, saying: 'Your children won’t find jobs.”

Ai Weiwei

2010-, China’s Censorship Can Never Defeat the Internet, 2012

Children , People , Secret , Family

“In a society where there is no freedom of the press, it is difficult for victims to be noticed. Just take the example from yesterday: I had given a telephone interview to CNN. Then, suddenly, CNN was shut down for a couple of minutes. It was the first time I experienced that my television went totally dead. I realized: Oh my God, it’s because of me. This is crazy! Which nation would do that? Maybe Cuba, North Korea, China. But what do they want, what are they so afraid of?”

Ai Weiwei

2010-, Ai Weiwei Does Not Feel Powerful, 2011

God , Freedom , Time , Dead

“The biggest crime of a dictatorship is to eradicate human feelings from people.”

Ai Weiwei

“ China Artist Ai Weiwei Says He Regrets Designing Beijing Olympics Bird’s Nest http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2012/apr/16/china-censorship-internet-freedom.” Telegraph, March 5, 2012. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/9123705/China-artist-Ai-Weiwei-says-he-regrets-designing-Beijing-Olympics-Birds-Nest.html
2010-, 2012

People , Feeling

“The Olympics are an opportunity to redefine the country, but the message is always wrong.”

Ai Weiwei

2000-09, Happiness Can’t Be Faked, 2008

Country

“This is a decadent era. Its main characteristic is that it’s dependent on lies and cheating. Once it loses this characteristic, it can’t survive for even a day.”

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei on Twitter in English (beta). (February 22, 2011) http://aiwwenglish.tumblr.com/
2010-, Twitter feeds, 2010-12

Dependency , Cheating

“People often say I started to become too outspoken after a certain period. It’s all because of the Internet. If we didn’t have this technology I would be same as everybody else. I couldn’t really amplify my voice.”

Ai Weiwei

2010-, I have to speak for people who are afraid, 2010

People

“The frustration mainly comes from trying to understand what they really want. Also, you cannot understand how can such a large nation maintain its so-called stability by doing something very unlawful. I mean, how can they possibly manage to stabilize the whole social condition by not [acting with] justice and fairness.”

Ai Weiwei

2010-, You’re There but You’re Not Existing, 2012

Justice , Understanding

“When the mayor of Nagoya denies the Nanjing Massacre, he gets blacklisted by the city of Nanjing. When the government of Sichuan denies “tofu dregs” construction [which caused the collapse of several schools], they get blacklisted by me.”

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei on Twitter in English (beta). (February 26, 2012) http://aiwwenglish.tumblr.com/
2010-, Twitter feeds, 2010-12

School

“In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want—not only you, your whole family and all people like you.”

Ai Weiwei

“ At home: Ai Weiwei http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/6fdcaae6-5959-11e1-abf1-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1nQPAYr26..” Financial Times, February 24, 2012.
2010-, 2012

People , Family , Time

“Freedom of expression is a very essential condition for me to make any art. Also, it is an essential value for my life. I have to protect this right and also to fight for the possibility.”

Ai Weiwei

" Artist Ai Weiwei: China Crushes Dissenting Voices http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/06/11/artist-ai-weiwei-china-crushes-dissenting-voices/.," in: Fox News, June 11, 2012.
2010-, 2012

Life , Art , Freedom , Fight

“I call on people to be “obsessed citizens,” forever questioning and asking for accountability. That’s the only chance we have today of a healthy and happy life.”

Ai Weiwei

" Our Duty Is to Remember Sichuan http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/25/china-earthquake-cover-up/print." Guardian.co.uk., May 25, 2009.
2000-09, 2009

Life , People , Question , Chance

“If Shakespeare were alive today, he might be writing on Twitter.”

Ai Weiwei

Osnos, Evan. “ It’s Not Beautiful: An Artist Takes On the System http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/05/24/100524fa_fact_osnos?currentPage=all.” New Yorker, May 24, 2010, 54–63.
2010-, 2010

“No outdoor sports can be more elegant than throwing stones at autocracy; no melees can be more exciting than those in cyberspace.”

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei Twitter feed: @AiWW (8:03 a.m. March 10, 2010)
2010-, Twitter feeds, 2010-12

Sport

“I think right now is the moment. This is the beginning. We don’t know what is it the moment of, and maybe something much crazier will happen. But really, we see the sunshine coming in. It was clouded for maybe a hundred years. Our whole condition was very sad, but we still feel warmth, and the life in our bodies can still tell that there is excitement in there, even though death is waiting. We had better not enjoy the moment, but create the moment.”

Ai Weiwei

Tinari, Philip, and Angie Baecker, eds. Hans Ulrich Obrist: The China Interviews. Beijing: Office for Discourse Engineering, 2009.
2000-09, 2009

Life , Death , Sadness , Feeling

“This does not mean a meteor has fallen. This is the discovery of a star.”

Ai Weiwei

Watts, Jonathan. “ Chinese Human Rights Activist Liu Xiaobo Sentenced to 11 Years in Jail http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/25/china-jails-liu-xiaobo.” Guardian, December 25, 2009.
2000-09, 2009

Star

“Before blogging, I was living in the Middle Ages. Now my feelings for time and space are entirely different.”

Ai Weiwei

2000-09, The Bold and the Beautiful, 2009

Age , Feeling , Time

“I often think what I’m saying is for the people who never had a chance to be heard.”

Ai Weiwei

2000-09, Truth to Power, 2009

People , Thinking , Chance

“I think I have this responsibility to my father’s generation, and especially future generations.”

Ai Weiwei

2010-, Ai Weiwei: 'Every day I think, this will be the day I get taken in again...', 2011

Thinking , Future

“I don’t really care that much about if I want to be more successful or less successful in art, because I never think life and art should be separate. What’s life if you don’t have conversation and joy and anger?”

Ai Weiwei

2010-, Ai Weiwei: 'Every day I think, this will be the day I get taken in again...', 2011

Life , Art , Thinking , Success

“The population is in a constant state of enforced dislocation. So let us hope that a totally new culture will come out of this.”

Ai Weiwei

2000-09, Truth to Power, 2008

Hope

“Modernism represents a true kind of living. Modernism is not about form or method or the works of a few artists, but rather about a necessary way of living. And only this kind of lifestyle can save China, because if we don’t have modernism, then we will die under the grasp of one or another ideology. Modernism at least says that every person is free and needs to honestly encounter his own life.”

Ai Weiwei

2000-09, A Kind of True Living, 2007

Life , Way , Personality

“The Internet is uncontrollable. And if the Internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It’s as simple as that.”

Ai Weiwei

2010-, China’s Censorship Can Never Defeat the Internet, 2012

Freedom

“If there is no freedom of expression, then the beauty of life is lost. Participation in a society is not an artistic choice, it’s a human need.”

Ai Weiwei

Solway, Diane. “Enforced Disappearance.” W Magazine, November 2011.
2010-, 2011

Life , Beauty , Freedom

“Block [my blog] if you want, but I cannot self-censor, because that is the only reason I have the blog. We both know this is a game. You have to play your part, and I have to play mine.”

Ai Weiwei

2000-09, A Kind of True Living, 2007

Game , Parting

“I’m an artist who is always looking for what is possible. I’m always looking to extend the boundaries.”

Ai Weiwei

2010-, Ai Weiwei: The Dissident, 2011

“You know, if they can do this to me they can do this to anybody, and they have been doing this for over sixty years.... it’s a very strange world.”

Ai Weiwei

2010-, You’re There but You’re Not Existing, 2012

World

“The 2008 Olympics has created an illusion of China to the public and to the outside world. It is so fantastic, so unreal, that the entire meaning of the games is being distorted.”

Ai Weiwei

2000-09, Happiness Can’t Be Faked, 2008

World , Game

“I try to encourage people to look at our past in a critical way because as our education, we have a great, great history. But in reality we are poorest in ethics and philosophy, so I try to raise people’s consciousness on how we deal with our past.”

Ai Weiwei

2010-, Ai Weiwei, interview by Christiane Amanpour, 2010

People , Education , Way , History

“In talking about memory and our history, I think our humanity, especially in China, is cut. Cut, broken, separated. If we have a character from our history and memory, the character is broken, it’s shattered.”

Ai Weiwei

2000-09, Escape from Propaganda, 2009

History , Thinking , Memory

“The Internet is the best thing that could have happened to China.”

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei. “ The Olympics Are a Propaganda Show http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,531883,00.html.” Spiegel, January 29, 2008.
2000-09, 2008