Top 140 Ai Weiwei Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “Warhol influenced me because of his writing. If I had never read his writings and interviews, I would never have understood his work.”

— Ai Weiwei

52. “It doesn’t matter where I am – China will stay in me. I don’t know how far I can still walk on this road and what is the limit.”

— Ai Weiwei

53. “I think of art as coming from daily life, daily experience. I think it’s very important not to have it become work for some kind of elite circle.”

— Ai Weiwei

54. “An artwork unable to make people feel uncomfortable or to feel different is not one worth creating. This is the difference between the artist and the fool.”

— Ai Weiwei

55. “I have to find a place for my own. I have to search for my own happiness.”

— Ai Weiwei

56. “If there is no free speech, every single life has lived in vain.”

— Ai Weiwei

57. “We had better not enjoy the moment, but create the moment.”

— Ai Weiwei

58. “Imagine one day, the hateful world around you collapses. And it is your attitude, words and actions that put an end to it. Will you be excited?”

— Ai Weiwei

59. “I always want to design a frame that’s open to everyone. I don’t see art as a secret code.”

— Ai Weiwei

60. “The misconception of totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned. This is not the case. When you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill.”

— Ai Weiwei

61. “When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking. That’s dangerous for human development.”

— Ai Weiwei

62. “Your own acts tell the world who you are and what kind of society you think it should be.”

— Ai Weiwei

63. “It’s always nice to share your energy with young people, the people who might not have any skills but are simply willing to be a part of it.”

— Ai Weiwei

64. “I am very much interested in the so-called useless object. I mean, it takes perfect craftsmanship, beautiful material carefully measured and crafted, but at the same time it’s really useless.”

— Ai Weiwei

65. “Censorship is saying: ‘I’m the one who says the last sentence. Whatever you say, the conclusion is mine.’ But the internet is like a tree that is growing. The people will always have the last word – even if someone has a very weak, quiet voice. Such power will collapse because of a whisper.”

— Ai Weiwei

66. “I will never leave China, unless I am forced to. Because China is mine. I will not leave something that belongs to me in the hands of people I do not trust.”

— Ai Weiwei

67. “During the days in detention, I thought most about the moon.”

— Ai Weiwei

68. “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...”

— Ai Weiwei

69. “Every day I’m learning something new from the practice. It’s very rewarding.”

— Ai Weiwei

70. “Stupidity can win for a moment, but it can never really succeed because the nature of humans is to seek freedom. Rulers can delay that freedom, but they cannot stop it.”

— Ai Weiwei

71. “As a person, I was born to give out my opinions. By giving out my opinions, I realize who I am. As long as I can communicate, I’m not so lonely. If I cannot travel, or do art, or have company, if they take away all my belongings, it doesn’t matter at all.”

— Ai Weiwei

72. “I always want people to be confused, to be shocked or realize something later.”

— Ai Weiwei

73. “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.”

— Ai Weiwei

74. “We are living in a very complex society. It puts me in a complex frame of thinking.”

— Ai Weiwei

75. “A historical property has morals and ethics of the society that created it and it can be revived. What I mean is that we can discover new possibilities from the process of dismantling, transforming, and recreating.”

— Ai Weiwei

76. “Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.”

— Ai Weiwei

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

— Ai Weiwei

78. “Art should live in the heart of the people. Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don’t think art is elite or mysterious.”

— Ai Weiwei

79. “I have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself.”

— Ai Weiwei

80. “I’m a free man now, except I cannot leave China. You know, I have no desire to travel. I have so many things to do; I cannot finish them now.”

— Ai Weiwei

81. “The natural desire to save a cat is what it means to be a citizen.”

— Ai Weiwei

82. “We have to give our opinion, we have to say something, or we are a part of it. As an artist I am forced to say something.”

— Ai Weiwei

83. “If Shakespeare were alive today, he might be writing on Twitter.”

— Ai Weiwei

84. “In an environment without public platform nor protection, the individual is the most powerful and most responsible.”

— Ai Weiwei

85. “Overturning police cars is a super-intense workout. It’s probably the only sport I enjoy.”

— Ai Weiwei

86. “For me, it is OK as long as I can breathe, as long as my heart is pumping, as long as I can express myself.”

— Ai Weiwei

87. “In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want – not only you, your whole family and all people like you.”

— Ai Weiwei

88. “If a society cannot even support somebody like me, then people ask: Who is under protection then? That’s why there is such support for me. It is not because I am so beautiful or I am so charming. People feel: This guy is fighting for us.”

— Ai Weiwei

89. “We move so fast that memory is something we can only grasp.”

— Ai Weiwei

90. “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.”

— Ai Weiwei

91. “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

92. “I think art certainly is the vehicle for us to develop any new ideas, to be creative, to extend our imagination, to change the current conditions.”

— Ai Weiwei

93. “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

94. “To the media, I have become a symbolic figure, critical of China. According to the government, I am a dangerous threat.”

— Ai Weiwei

95. “When you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill.”

— Ai Weiwei

96. “Of course, most luxury goods in China are for corrupted officials and their relatives. And that made China become the biggest luxury-goods market. In this kind of dictatorship, in this kind of totalitarian society, it is easy to make deals that you cannot make in a democratic society.”

— Ai Weiwei

97. “A nation that has no music and no fairytales is a tragedy.”

— Ai Weiwei

98. “I’m not a writer, but today I think you have to be everything. As an artist you have an obligation to let people know what is on your mind and why you’re doing this.”

— Ai Weiwei

99. “I think it’s more important to show your work to the public.”

— Ai Weiwei

100. “I don’t think it’s worth discussing new directions in the context of Chinese art – there were no old directions, either. Chinese art has never had any clear orientation.”

— Ai Weiwei