#ear

Police in China can do whatever they want; after 81 days in arbitrary detention you clearly realise that they don't have to obey their own laws. 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

#any #arbitrary #china #clearly #crush

This week, the world gathers in Beijing for the 2008 Olympic games. This is the extraordinary moment China has been dreaming of for 100 years. People have been longing for this moment, because it symbolises a turning point in China's relationship with the outside world. ↗

— Ai Weiwei

#because #been #beijing #china #dreaming

Twitter was like a poem. It was rich, real and spontaneous. It really fit my style. In a year and a half, I tweeted 60,000 tweets, over 100,000 words. I spent a minimum eight hours a day on it, sometimes 24 hours. ↗

— Ai Weiwei

#eight #fit #half #hours #i

Widespread state control over art and culture has left no room for freedom of expression in the country. For more than 60 years, anyone with a dissenting opinion has been suppressed. Chinese art is merely a product: it avoids any meaningful engagement. There is no larger context. Its only purpose is to charm viewers with its ambiguity. ↗

— Ai Weiwei

#any #anyone #art #avoids #been

And for well over a hundred years our politicians, statesmen, and people remembered that this was a republic, not a democracy, and knew what they meant when they made that distinction. ↗

— Robert Welch

#distinction #hundred #knew #made #meant

I was so anxious to succeed that I made a practice of appearing on all the disc jockey shows I could, in order to publicize the band. ↗

— Lawrence Welk

#appearing #band #could #disc #i

I could write songs about politics, but I'm conscious of not writing songs that sound the same as the ones I wrote 30 years ago. ↗

— Paul Weller

#ago #conscious #could #i #ones

Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations. ↗

— Orson Welles

#order #quotations #recognize #shakespeare #sit

Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him. ↗

— Orson Welles

#actor #bad #believes #every #everything

As we learn from the New Testament, the Jews and the Samaritans in the days of Jesus were not agreed on the question which was the proper place of worship, but that there could be only one was taken to be as certain as the unity of God Himself. ↗

— Julius Wellhausen

#certain #could #days #god #himself