Ai Weiwei Quotes

213 Sourced Quotes

I am always trying to find how to get the message through. [In Munich] we custom-made five thousand backpacks like the ones of those students [who died in Sichuan] to construct a simple sentence [spoken by the] mother of a dead student. It was: 'She has been happily living in this world for seven years.'

Ai Weiwei
I don't feel powerful at all. I am still under this kind of detention, and you know, this is kind of a bail. Even yesterday I realized while trying to take care of the baby, [at] the park, [I had] been secretly followed and it's quite fragile. Maybe being powerful means to be fragile.

Ai Weiwei
Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it. I don't feel that much anger. I equally have a lot of joy.

Ai Weiwei
The state is taking action against people who have peacefully demonstrated their ideas. They are writers—all they did is to express their minds through the Internet. So the pattern is very clear. The state tries to maintain stability by crushing any thought of making change. It could happen to me, because I did the same thing and in many cases I went much further and deeper. But I always think the government can learn from their mistakes—they should learn and understand; they should be just as intelligent as anyone else.

Ai Weiwei
A city is a place that can offer maximum freedom. Otherwise it's incomplete.

Ai Weiwei
They [the government] cannot stop people from communicating freely, to get information and to express themselves. When they do that, this nation is not a right place to live. They sacrifice generations of people's opportunities. This is a crime.

Ai Weiwei
You see a Party system that crushes down anybody who [has] different opinions, who has different ideas in their mind. Simply to have different opinions can cost someone their life. They can be put in jail, they can be silenced, and they can [disappear]. And the other people would take it, not giving support.

Ai Weiwei
Tips on surviving the regime: Respect yourself and speak for others. Do one small thing every day to prove the existence of justice.

Ai Weiwei
House arrest, travel restrictions, surveillance, stopping phone service, cutting the Internet connection. What we can still do is greet the crazy motherland once again.

Ai Weiwei
Maybe there is something I got from it. Maybe you also start to be clear on certain things.

Ai Weiwei
What does it matter if China's economy grows when there are no basic protections for its citizens?

Ai Weiwei
The most unfair things that could have happened in a society fell upon a blind man. This is something that no one can accept or explain away with any excuse. Everyone will ask: 'Do we actually have to exist in a society like this?'

Ai Weiwei
I'm so fearful, that's not fearless... I act more brave because I know the danger's really there. If you don't act, the danger becomes stronger.

Ai Weiwei
It is absurd that so much money has been wasted on manipulating public opinion, on simulating emotion. This nation is notorious for its ability to make or fake anything cheaply. Made-in-China goods now fill homes around the world. But our giant country has a small problem. We can't manufacture the happiness of our people.

Ai Weiwei
Not an inch of the land belongs to you, but every inch could easily imprison you.

Ai Weiwei
I came to art because I wanted to escape the other regulations of the society. The whole society is so political. But the irony is that my art becomes more and more political.

Ai Weiwei
If a nation cannot face its past, it has no future.

Ai Weiwei
I feel powerless all the time, but I regain my energy by making a very small difference that won't cost me much.

Ai Weiwei
Living in a system under the Communist ideology, an artist cannot avoid fighting for freedom of expression. You always have to be aware that art is not only a self-expression but a demonstration of human rights and dignity. To express yourself freely, a right as personal as it is, has always been difficult, given the political situation.

Ai Weiwei
I think the government [will] lose the battle. Because for a nation to develop, the government needs to correct the information, they need to have a space for people to be involved, to discuss, to participate in the change. Otherwise, I don't think they can really last in this kind of development, because economically it goes so fast but politically it stays the same as many, many years ago. I think even the government senses that this is impossible.

Ai Weiwei
Later I became very involved in writing. I really enjoyed that moment of writing. People would pass around my sentences. That was a feeling I never had before. It was like a bullet out of the gun.

Ai Weiwei
I think it's a responsibility for any artist to protect freedom of expression and to use any way to extend this power.

Ai Weiwei
During the days in detention, I thought most about the moon.

Ai Weiwei
I cannot ever accept the kind of conditions where you can sacrifice someone's rights.

Ai Weiwei
Cities really are mental conditions. Beijing is a nightmare. A constant nightmare.

Ai Weiwei