Liu Xiaobo Quotes

Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity and the mother of truth.

Life is priceless even to an ant

I hope that I'm not the type of person who, standing at the doorway to hell, strikes a heroic pose and then starts frowning with indecision.

Those who flee freedom live on but their souls die in fear Those who thirst for freedom die but their souls live on in resistance

If you want to go to hell, don't complain of the dark'.

As facing the sea reveals the sky and facing the sky reveals the sea facing my soul reveals your soul

Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth. To strangle freedom of speech is to trample on human rights, stifle humanity, and suppress truth.

I, too, eat steamed human-blood buns.

Let the darkness transform into rock across the wilderness of my memory

In the face of a nation that shamelessly assaults the very marrow of our bones, memory is but a pale gray field.

Life numbed, unceasing, interminable, from zero begins to zero it ends.

So let us recognise our shame and guilt; let us ache with self-reflection; let us eradicate the repetition of suffering and resist anger; let us learn to concretely tend to the suffering of an individual, of our common citizens, with equality; let us learn to live life with honour and dignity and a wealth of humanity.

Before the eyes shut this knife shines snow- bright once more through the inner organs as using a nuclear bomb to light a cigar sends lung cancer across the earth to parting lovers

Patriotism is a villain's last refuge.

But unarmed righteousness fostered by love can overcome weapons and power, as demonstrated by the miraculous triumph of Jesus over Caesar, or Gandhi’s and Martin Luther King’s victories through nonviolent resistance. Jesus is a model of martyrdom because he withstood the temptations of power, wealth, and glamour, and remained steadfast even when threatened with crucifixion. Most important of all, Jesus exemplified opposition without hatred or the desire for retaliation; his heart was filled with boundless love and forgiveness. Completely eschewing violence, he epitomized passive resistance, serenely defiant even as he meekly carried his own cross. No matter how profane and pragmatic our world is, we will have passion, miracles, and beauty as long as we have the example of Jesus Christ. In

China has entered an “Age of Sarcasm.” Anywhere outside of state-sponsored parties, entertainment shows, or the comedies and skits on television, China’s rulers and official corruption have become the main material for the sarcastic humor that courses through society. Virtually anyone can tell a political joke laced with pornographic innuendo, and almost every town and village has its own rich stock of satirical political ditties. Private dinner gatherings become informal stage shows for venting grievances and telling political jokes; the better jokes and ditties, told and retold, spread far and wide. This material is the authentic public discourse of mainland China, and it forms a sharp contrast with what appears in the state-controlled media. To listen only to the public media, you could think you are living in paradise; if you listen only to the private exchanges, you will conclude that you are living in hell. One shows only sweetness and light, the other only a sunless darkness. For

The government forbade the broadcast of this “decadent bourgeois music,” and Li Guyi, the first mainland singer to imitate Teresa Teng’s style, was subjected to a parade of official criticism sessions. Nevertheless, where privacy could be found, people huddled around “bricks”—our nickname for the little square Japanese-made radio-recorders on which popular songs could be heard. We listened and listened, until we could sing the songs ourselves, everywhere—in the halls, in the cafeterias, in bed. Anyone who owned a “brick” always had plenty of friends. It

To look squarely at the suffering of the ordinary people whose misery is recorded in the transcripts makes me feel that I am not qualified even to be called a “survivor.” It is true that I was one of the last people to leave Tiananmen Square on June 4th, but I did nothing to volunteer myself during the bloody terror of the massacre’s aftermath, nothing to show that a kernel of my humanity had survived. After I left the square, I did not go to Beijing Normal University campus to check on the students from my alma mater who presumably had also left the square. Still less did I consider going out into the streets to minister to dead and wounded whom I did not know. Instead I fled to the relative safety of the foreign diplomatic housing compound. It is no wonder that the ordinary people who lived through the butchery might ask: “When great terror engulfed the city of Beijing, where were all those ‘black hands’ ”? Fifteen

In a post-totalitarian dictatorship, the grins of the people are the nightmares of the dictators.

The ease with which money forgives bayonets and lies to justify the massacre with reasoned arguments

Gustavo Solivellas dice: "La libertad de expresión es la base de los derechos humanos, la raíz de la naturaleza humana y la madre de la verdad. Matar la libertad de expresión es insultar los derechos humanos, es reprimir la naturaleza humana y suprimir la verdad" (Liu Xiaobo)

Inasmuch as resistance is a choice to descend into hell, one musn't complain about the darkness.

The mother who kept your seventeen years locked up at home the mother who beneath a five-starred flag severed the ties of noble blood which bound her own family woke when you fixed her with your final gaze bearing your seventeen-year-old bequest she has crossed and recrossed every graveyard every time she was about to fall the spectral breath of a seventeen-year-old propped her up and sent her on her way Surpassing age surpassing death your seventeen years will last forever