Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to reading the history of ideas.
AYAAN HIRSI ALII call myself a liberal – a classical liberal as in John Stuart Mill.
More Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes
-
-
My first experience in the Netherlands was very pleasant, extremely pleasant. I mean, I got my residence permit, refugee status, within four weeks of arrival. People treated me extremely well.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI -
There are some mosques with facilities for women; it’s usually a back room with a back-door entrance.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI -
Free speech is the bedrock of liberty and a free society. And yes, it includes the right to blaspheme and offend.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI -
Every time I went on TV I got a threat.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI -
In Holland I have seen well-meaning, principled people blinded by multiculturalism, overwhelmed by the imperative to be sensitive and respectful of immigrant culture, while ignoring criminal abuse of women and girls.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI -
If such a young nation as the U.S. could make it to superpower status, we could do it as well.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI -
My conscience is informed by reason. It’s like Kant’s categorical imperative: behave to others as you would wish they behaved to you.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI -
The mistake that the Bush administration should admit to is not so much that they made the wrong choices. They made the right analysis; they made the right choices. But what they did wrong was the execution of those choices. That was wrong.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI -
Reality is not easy, but all this make-believe doesn’t make it easier.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI -
However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI -
What I find daunting always is to stand on a stage and talk to people, whether they agree with me or not.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI -
The more we oblige, the more we self-censor, the more we appease, the bolder the enemy gets.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI -
Americans have always welcomed people of all backgrounds, religions, and races. It’s a spirit of tolerance, now energized and amplified by the cult of multiculturalism.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI -
We had a world dominated by the Soviet Union on the one hand, and the Americans on the other hand. They called it the Cold War. But it wasn’t cold. I am someone who comes from the third world. In the third world, the cold war wasn’t cold. Millions had been killed. It was a proxy war.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI -
I assume the closest members of my family don’t actually want to kill me, but the truth is that I have shamed and hurt them; they have to deal with the outrage that my public statements cause, and undoubtedly some members of my clan do want to kill me for that.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI