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

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that Islam is peace and tolerance.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Islam Peace People Tolerance
We have to start with the little babies who are born now, socialize them in freedom and critical thinking. We don’t have to throw away their faith. People confuse the two, thinking if you are enlightened that means apostasy. It doesn’t.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Born Critical Enlightenment Freedom Social Start Thinking Yourself
Where there is no freedom of speech, there is no conscience.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Conscience Freedom Speech
The Christian take on Hellfire seems less dramatic than the Muslim vision, which I grew up with, but Christian magical thinking appeals to me no more than my mother’s angels and djinns.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Angel Drama Islam Magic Mom Myself Thinking Version
I was a Muslim once, remember, and it was when I was most devout that I was most full of hate.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Hate Myself Religion Remember
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Apologize Defend Individual Liberal Movement People Right Treatment
What we are now doing with the victory, and I agree with you if you condemn that and I condemn whole-heartedly the trivial bullshit it is to go after a man who makes a scientific breakthrough and all that we as women — organized women — do is to fret about his shirt?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Agreement Himself Organization Shirt Victory Woman
I have had to pay a price for leaving Islam and for speaking out. I have to pay for round-the-clock security because of the death threats against me.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Death Islam Leaving Myself Pay Price Threat
I call myself a liberal – a classical liberal as in John Stuart Mill.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Call Liberal Myself
European 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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Children Education Human Narrative Tolerance Yourself
I talk about a Christianity that is enlightened enough to separate spirituality from the rest of life. Not just church and state, but knowledge and church.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Enlightenment Knowledge Life Myself Separate State Talk
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Terrorism Time Train Work Yourself
In a well-functioning democracy, the state constitution is considered more important than God’s holy book, whichever holy book that may be, and God matters only in your private life.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Book Constitution Democracy Holy Life Privacy State
Bear true witness, even if it be against yourselves, your parents or your family.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Family Parents True Yourself
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

Administration Analysis Mistake Right Wrong
Free speech is the bedrock of liberty and a free society. And yes, it includes the right to blaspheme and offend.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Freedom Liberty Offend
I’d love to go and visit the Mosque in Mecca again, just for the sheer beauty of it, not for God – much the way a non-Catholic might go to Vatican City because of the beauty of the buildings and the artifacts.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Artifact Beautiful Building God Love Myself Visit
I see no difference between Islam and Islamism. Islam is defined as submission to the will of Allah, as it is described in the Koran. Islamism is just Islam in its most pure form.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Difference God Islam Purity Religion Submission
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
In a sense, my grandmother was living in the Iron Age. There was no system of writing among the nomads. Metal artifacts were rare and precious…. The first time she saw a white person my grandmother was in her thirties: she thought this person’s skin had burned off.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Burn Herself Iron Live Metal Person Precious Rare System Time Writing
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
However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Injustice Silence Time
I’d like Muslims to look at their religion as a set of beliefs that they can appraise critically and pick and choose from.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Choice Criticism Muslim Myself Region
If we don’t take effective measures now, the Netherlands could be torn between two extreme rights.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Measurement Right
They decided to let immigrants in and I am an immigrant. They gave us a chance to participate in this country’s life and I took it.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Chance Country Decision Immigrant Life Participate
There are some mosques with facilities for women; it’s usually a back room with a back-door entrance.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Entrance Facility Religious Woman
I want people to emphasize life before death as opposed to life after death.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Death Life Myself People

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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