Quote

In a society that restricts individual freedoms and violates human rights, anything that calls itself creative or independent is a pretence. It is impossible for a totalitarian society to create anything with passion and imagination.

Ai Weiwei

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ai Weiwei
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: May 18
Architect
Consultant
Contemporary Artist
Designer
Film Director
Human Rights Activist
Painter
Photographer
Sculptor
Social Activist
Peking
Wei-wei Ai
Weiwei Ai
Ai Wei Wei
Creative
Freedoms
Rights
Calls
Society
Tyranny
Individual
Independent
Anything
Create
Restricts
Human
Imagination
Violates
Humans
Impossible
Pretence
Passion
Totalitarian

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

Image
The world is not changing if you don’t shoulder the burden of responsibility.
Ai Weiwei
Image
A small act is worth a million thoughts.
Ai Weiwei
Image
In the '80s, you couldn't walk in the neighborhood without looking back to see if anyone was following you. You had your key in your hand before you got to your apartment and you'd rush in so you didn't have to stop.
Ai Weiwei
Image
Destroy or build. Crazy or noncrazy. I'm not nostalgic about the old city. I don't enjoy it that much.
Ai Weiwei
Image
The whole attitude of society has become much more open and realistic. They realize that the only way to make a more democratic and free society is to let different opinions come out.
Ai Weiwei
Image
People have a tendency to become elite rather than to care about the general conditions of the society, which makes me sick. It's an unbearable condition.
Ai Weiwei
Image
To survive, China had to open up to the West. It could not survive otherwise. This was after many millions have died of hunger in a country that was like North Korea is today. Once we became part of global competition, we had to agree to some rules. It's painful, but we had to. Otherwise there was no way to survive.
Ai Weiwei
Image
My mother became much older when I came out (ed's note: of detention). She had problems with her hearing and high blood pressure. But they still support me.
Ai Weiwei
Image
The fantasy we had with pearls was always so luxurious and unique with a kind of rareness.
Ai Weiwei
Image
I think the pearls - one is a necklace, and another you have five hundred pounds of pearls, which may be one million pearls in a bowl - really show a kind of [society] condition.
Ai Weiwei
Image
My situation gives me certain ideas about beauty or the excitement of life, but that doesn't mean other people can necessarily appreciate it.
Ai Weiwei
Image
We should also leave behind discrimination, because it is narrow-minded and ignorant, denies contact and warmth and corrodes mankind's belief that we can better ourselves. The only way to avoid misunderstanding, war and bloodshed is to defend freedom of expression and to communicate with sincerity, concern and good intentions.
Ai Weiwei
Image
New York has given me a lot, but I still don't consider it home.
Ai Weiwei
Image
China has not established the rule of law and if there is a power above the law there is no social justice. Everybody can be subjected to harm. I'm just a citizen: my life is equal in value to any other. But I'm thankful that when I lost my freedom so many people shared feelings and put such touching effort into helping me.
Ai Weiwei
Image
Only with the Internet can a peasant I have never met hear my voice and I can learn what's on his mind. A fairy tale has come true.
Ai Weiwei
Image
I remember one little rainy day I went searching for this apartment and I saw so many people standing on a stoop on the corner in the rain. Later I realized, that was drug traffic. They were all buying drugs.
Ai Weiwei
Image
Chinese citizens have never had the right to really express their opinions in the constitution it says you can, but in the real world it is more dangerous. In the west people think it's a right they're born with. Here it's a right given by the government, and one that's not really practised.
Ai Weiwei
Image
Twitter is most suitable for me. In the Chinese language, 140 characters is a novella.
Ai Weiwei
Image
Art is always about overcoming obstacles between the inner condition and the skill for expression.
Ai Weiwei
Image
The world is sphere, has no East or West.
Ai Weiwei