“I often ask myself if I am afraid of being detained again. I love freedom as much as anybody else, maybe more than most. But it is a tragedy to live your life in fear. It is worse than actually losing your freedom.”
2010-, Living in Fear Is Worse Than Imprisonment, 2012
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Ai Weiwei 218
Chinese concept artist 1957Related quotes

Listen, Little Man! (1948)
Context: You beg for happiness in life, but security is more important to you, even if it costs you your spine or your life. Your life will be good and secure when aliveness will mean more to you than security; love more than money; your freedom more than party line or public opinion; when your thinking will be in harmony with your feelings; when the teachers of your children will be better paid than the politicians; when you will have more respect for the love between man and woman than for a marriage license.

As quoted in Vietnam: The Betrayal of a Revolution https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1991/10/20/vietnam-the-betrayal-of-a-revolution/baef22ef-5ee7-43f0-97d3-7dc02ab24533/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.865c3958cb61 (20 October 1991), by Bui Tin

“I am afraid that many among you are more concerned about making a living than making a life.”
King makes two biblical allusions to Luke 15:17 and 1 Timothy 6:10: "For the love of money is the root of all evil".
1950s, Paul's Letter to American Christians (1956)
Context: I understand that you have an economic system in America known as Capitalism. Through this economic system you have been able to do wonders. You have become the richest nation in the world, and you have built up the greatest system of production that history has ever known. All of this is marvelous, but Americans, there is the danger that you will misuse your Capitalism. I still contend that money can be the root of all evil. It can cause one to live a life of gross materialism. I am afraid that many among you are more concerned about making a living than making a life. You are prone to judge the success of your profession by the index of your salary and the size of the wheel base on your automobile, rather than the quality of your service to humanity. The misuse of Capitalism can also lead to tragic exploitation. This has so often happened in your nation. They tell me that one tenth of one percent of the population controls more than forty percent of the wealth. Oh America, how often have you taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. If you are to be a truly Christian nation you must solve this problem. You cannot solve the problem by turning to communism, for communism is based on an ethical relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can accept. You can work within the framework of democracy to bring about a better distribution of wealth. You can use your powerful economic resources to wipe poverty from the face of the earth. God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty. God intends for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life, and He has left in this universe "enough and to spare" for that purpose. So I call upon you to bridge the gulf between abject poverty and superfluous wealth.

Reuters UK http://uk.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUKN2861788420071129 (November 27, 2007)

Source: Arriving at Your Own Door: 108 Lessons in Mindfulness

“I love you much less than my God, but much more than myself.”
Je vous aime,
Beaucoup moins que mon Dieu, mais bien plus que moi-même.
Polyeucte, act IV, scene iii.
Polyeucte (1642)

Strictly Personal, ch. 31 (1941)
Source: What does an archbishop do when he retires? https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-cardinal-george-retirement-plan-met-20141125-story.html (25 November 2014)