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I also have to speak out for people around me who are afraid, who think it is not worth it or who have totally given up hope. So I want to set an example: you can do it and this is OK, to speak out.

Ai Weiwei

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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
Worth
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Example
People
Hope
Speak
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More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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Many people I know - writers, poets - they have all been sentenced not once but sometimes three times after they come out. They serve five or six years, come out another time, and then nine years. Come out again, 12 years. Only because they have a different opinion. They are innocent people, they have beautiful minds, beautiful hearts.
Ai Weiwei
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To work in architecture you are so much involved with society, with politics, with bureaucrats. It's a very complicated process to do large projects. You start to see the society, how it functions, how it works. Then you have a lot of criticism about how it works.
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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
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Life is much more interesting when you make a little bit of effort.
Ai Weiwei
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My musician friends are banned from playing concerts in China because they share the same views as I do. My name cannot appear on the web, because my opinion is different from the Party.
Ai Weiwei
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I don't believe in a sense of home.
Ai Weiwei
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There are no outdoor sports as graceful as throwing stones at a dictatorship.
Ai Weiwei
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Your own acts tell the world who you are and what kind of society you think it should be.
Ai Weiwei
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The society was so different [in China] - it was a feudalistic society. It didn't come to a point of industrial revolution until twenty years ago.
Ai Weiwei
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The Internet is uncontrollable. And if the Internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It's as simple as that.
Ai Weiwei
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I never saw [Allen Ginsberg] as some kind of crazy figure.
Ai Weiwei
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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
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Otherwise, I think the building can be bigger, larger, and the city can be much more crazy. The problem is the government structure is so deadly stupid, not really solving problems but creating a lot of problems itself every day.
Ai Weiwei
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The Internet changes the structure of society all the time — this massiveness made of individuals.
Ai Weiwei
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I see the Beijing National Stadium as an architectural project. I accepted Herzog and De Meuron's invitation to collaborate on the design, and our proposal won the competition. From beginning to end, I stayed with the project. I am committed to fostering relationships between a city and its architecture.
Ai Weiwei
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I also doubt a man can give really clear reasons for anything.
Ai Weiwei
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China spends a lot of resources and effort on gaining soft power over culture. The hope is that it can be the last lifeline for the Party's survival. Obviously, the idea will fail.
Ai Weiwei
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Once you've tasted freedom, it stays in your heart...
Ai Weiwei
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We should use this public sphere and redefine - beyond China's borders - what a government is allowed to do, where its powers end and where the realm of a citizen's privacy begins.
Ai Weiwei
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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