“I have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself.”

— Ai Weiwei

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

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself." by Ai Weiwei?

Ai Weiwei 218

Chinese concept artist 1957

Related quotes

“If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

“I wanted to be free. I wanted to express desires on my own, to shape my own little life.”

Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) Soviet diplomat

The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)

“I shall never deny what you deserve, my queen,
never regret my memories of Dido, not while I
can recall myself and draw the breath of life.”
Numquam, regina, negabo Promeritam, nec me meminisse pigebit Elissae Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos regit artus.

Virgil Aeneid

Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book IV, Lines 334–336 (tr. Fagles); Aeneas to Dido.

“I wonder how many people I have looked at all my life and never really seen.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Variant: I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.
Source: East of Eden

“I see people giving me looks because I'm so opinionated. That hurts my feelings, but at the end of the day I have to live with me and respect myself. And I've done enough things in my life where I was confused and didn't respect myself that I will not do it any more.”

Sherilyn Fenn (1965) American actress

Sherilyn Fenn, quoted in "'Three of Hearts' may be Fenn's winning card", by Nancy Mills. Boston Herald (USA). April 25, 1993. p. 41

“For me, life would be worthless if there was not modern art and if I did not had the opportunity to express myself in it anyhow, now that I have gradually found the way I can express myself.”

Hendrik Werkman (1882–1945) Dutch artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands): Voor mij zou het leven waardeloos zijn als er niet de moderne kunst was en als ik niet de mogelijkheid had om me daarin te uiten op welke manier dan ook, nu ik de wijze waarop ik mij kan uiten langzamerhand heb gevonden.
Quote of Werkman in his letter to August Henkels, June 1942, as cited by Doeke Sijens in H. N. Werkman - Leven & Werk - 1882-1945, ed. A. de Vries, J. van der Spek, D. Sijens, M. Jansen; WBooks, Groninger Museum / Stichting Werkman, 2015 (transl: Fons Heijnsbroek), p. 64
1940's