black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

My first experience in the Netherlands was very pleasant, extremely pleasant. I mean, I got my residence permit, refugee status, within four weeks of arrival. People treated me extremely well.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I think of Canada, first and foremost, in terms of space. The amount of space available is breathtaking.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Breathe Foremost Myself Space Thinking
I love life more than I love death.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Choice Death Life Love Myself
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
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Born Faith Islam People Religion Scripture Young
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Argument Building Leaving Order Right State
If such a young nation as the U.S. could make it to superpower status, we could do it as well.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Nation Status Well Young
The demand that Islam makes of women is to not attract attention to yourself, and if you are in a secular society, that attire does exactly that, and it is a political symbol, no longer religious.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Attraction Demand Islam Religious Society Symbol Woman
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
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
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
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
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
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
I don’t have much in me left for Somalia, because the country is so broken, it’s not realistic to daydream about it.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Break Country Myself Realistic
It takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Cage Dissolve Mental Time
But without doubts, without a standpoint reached through questionings, human beings can’t acquire knowledge.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Doubt Human Knowledge Point Stand

My first experience in the Netherlands was very pleasant, extremely pleasant. I mean, I got my residence permit, refugee status, within four weeks of arrival. People treated me extremely well.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

My first experience in the Netherlands was very pleasant, extremely pleasant. I mean, I got my residence permit, refugee status, within four weeks of arrival. People treated me extremely well.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes