Ai Weiwei Quotes

A small act is worth a million thoughts.

To express yourself needs a reason, but expressing yourself is the reason.

Politics is like air and water. And you know if there is bad politics. Everyone is polluted. Everyone is unhealthy. See the people walking on the street: how they act.

Once you’ve tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it. Then, you can be more powerful than a whole country.

Without freedom of speech, there is no modern world, just a barbaric one.

The biggest obstacle in interacting with China is the difference in perspectives about basic values. These include issues such as human rights, the concept of law and constitution.

Choices after waking up: To be true or to lie? To take action or be brainwashed? To be free or be jailed?

For those actors and directors who produce films which are always about the old kingdom or about heroes, you know about the fantasies related to the classics, but there is no real discussion about today’s life and no discussion of the real conditions – which is really sickening. They’ve become part of a conspiracy, collaborators of the crime, which is lying to the general public and trying to hide the kind of criminal acts happening in many cases.

I call on people to be ‘obsessed citizens,’ forever questioning and asking for accountability. That’s the only chance we have today of a healthy and happy life.

What counts in the end is what the government does.

China restricts the society’s freedom of speech. The Communist Party imposes these limits because it lacks confidence towards the future and has no ideals. Nowadays, China is experiencing the detrimental effects of such decisions. Its citizens have no creativity.

Recently I danced in a video spoof of the song ‘Gangnam Style,’ and it was quickly banned across multiple Chinese online video platforms. But the story still traveled all over the world, carried in hundreds of international media reports.