Bear true witness, even if it be against yourselves, your parents or your family.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIEuropean children are educated in a narrative of human tolerance every day, and if you want to be sure to prevent a backlash, you should at least think of bringing Muslim children and teenagers into the fold of that narrative of tolerance.
More Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes
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Where there is no freedom of speech, there is no conscience.
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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.
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My conscience is informed by reason. It’s like Kant’s categorical imperative: behave to others as you would wish they behaved to you.
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The liberal psyche wants to protect minorities, to apologize for imperialism, colonialism, slavery, and the appalling treatment of black people during the civil rights movement. At the same time, they want to continue to defend the rights of individuals.
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I would like to be judged on the validity of my arguments, not as a victim.
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It takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage.
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Islam was like a mental cage. At first, when you open the door, the caged bird stays inside: it is frightened. It has internalized its imprisonment. It takes time for bird to escape, even after someone has opened the doors to its cage.
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The idea that if people are just friendly and demonstrate they want peace, that will be answered with good will – that is really naive.
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Young people, some of whom are not born into the faith, are being fired up by preachers using basic Islamic scripture and mobilized to wage jihad by radical imams who represent themselves as legitimate Muslim clergymen.
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I want people to emphasize life before death as opposed to life after death.
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No one in the American Enterprise imposes their beliefs. We clash, and I think that’s what the West is all about.
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We who don’t want radical Islam to spread must compete with the agents of radical Islam. I want to see what would happen if Christians, feminists and Enlightenment thinkers were to start proselytizing in the Muslim community.
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Muslim leaders should ask themselves what exactly their relationship is to a political movement that encourages young men to kill and main on religious grounds.
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What I find daunting always is to stand on a stage and talk to people, whether they agree with me or not.
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Reality is not easy, but all this make-believe doesn’t make it easier.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI