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Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to reading the history of ideas.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I am grateful to my father for sending me to school, and that we moved from Somalia to Kenya, where I learned English.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

English Gratitude Language Learning Move
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Door Escape Islam Open Prison Religion Stay
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

Agreement Finding Myself Stage Stand
Where there is no freedom of speech, there is no conscience.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Conscience Freedom Speech
I lived in countries that had no democracy. so I don’t find myself in the same luxury as you do. You grew up in freedom, and you can spit on freedom because you don’t know what it is not to have freedom.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Country Democracy Freedom Known Live Luxury Yourself
I come from a world where the word ‘trauma’ doesn’t exist, because we are too poor. I didn’t have an easy life compared to the average European. But compared to the average African, it wasn’t all that bad.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Bad Existence Myself Trauma Word World
I love life more than I love death.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Choice Death Life Love Myself
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

Behavior Conscience Information Yourself
My brother thinks it is very, very bad that I left Islam. My half-sister wants to convert me back; I want to convert her to Western values. My mum is terrified that when I die, and we all go to God, I will be burned.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Bad Brother Burn Death Family Mom Myself Religion Thinking
When I was with the Labor Party, I’d get into trouble because the party bosses determined that some of what I wrote, or proposed to write about, wasn’t conducive to their policies or to electoral success.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Determination Myself Party Policy Success Trouble Writing
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

Amplify Culture Race Religion Welcome
But without doubts, without a standpoint reached through questionings, human beings can’t acquire knowledge.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Doubt Human Knowledge Point Stand
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

Domination Hands Kill War World
I confront the European elite’s self-image as tolerant ‘while under their noses women are living like slaves.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Elite Image Live Myself Slave Tolerance Woman
No one in the American Enterprise imposes their beliefs. We clash, and I think that’s what the West is all about.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Belief Impose Oneself Thinking
In the real world, equal respect for all cultures doesn’t translate into a rich mosaic of colorful and proud peoples interacting peacefully while maintaining a delightful diversity of food and craftwork. It translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Abuse Culture Equality Ignorance Maintain Oppression People Reality Respect Tradition

Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to reading the history of ideas.

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Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to reading the history of ideas.

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