As a woman you are better off in life earning your own money. You couldn’t prevent your husband from leaving you or taking another wife, but you could have some of your dignity if you didn’t have to beg him for financial support.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIYou have to let individuals make their own choices and respect that, even if it’s your own child. And that’s what was taken away from me. My father passed away thinking I still had to go back to his way of believing.
More Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes
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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.
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However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.
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It takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage.
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In April 2006, a Dutch court ordered that I leave my safe-home that I was renting from the State. The judge concluded that my neighbors had a right to argue that they felt unsafe because of my presence in the building.
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All my life I have been a nomad.
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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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I confront the European elite’s self-image as tolerant ‘while under their noses women are living like slaves.
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You have to let individuals make their own choices and respect that, even if it’s your own child. And that’s what was taken away from me. My father passed away thinking I still had to go back to his way of believing.
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There are some mosques with facilities for women; it’s usually a back room with a back-door entrance.
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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.
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Bear true witness, even if it be against yourselves, your parents or your family.
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Every time you take a train, step into your car, walk into the shopping mall, go to the airport – every single time, something could happen. That’s how terrorism works.
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Every time I went on TV I got a threat.
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I don’t have much in me left for Somalia, because the country is so broken, it’s not realistic to daydream about it.
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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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI






