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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

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 is a huge difference between being tolerant and tolerating intolerance.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Difference Huge Tolerance
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

Answer Friendly Goodness Ideas Naive People
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Believe Choice Death Father Freedom Independent Myself Thinking Willing
I would like to be judged on the validity of my arguments, not as a victim.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Argument Judgment Victim
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
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
But without doubts, without a standpoint reached through questionings, human beings can’t acquire knowledge.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Doubt Human Knowledge Point Stand
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
Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Coward One Liner Tolerance
Reality is not easy, but all this make-believe doesn’t make it easier.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Believe Easy Reality
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
Of course, the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists or sympathetic to terrorists. Equating all Muslims with terrorism is stupid and wrong. But acknowledging that there is a link between Islam and terror is appropriate and necessary.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Acknowledgement Equation Majority Necessary Stupidity Terrorist Wrong
The more we oblige, the more we self-censor, the more we appease, the bolder the enemy gets.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Bold Enemy Obligation
Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to reading the history of ideas.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Compare Drinking History Ideas Reading

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

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

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