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You'll be pleased to hear, Christopher, that I am no longer a Muslim liberal but an atheist [....] I find that it obviates the necessity for any cognitive dissonance.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Age: 54
Born: 1969
Born: November 13
Activist
Author
Feminist
Journalist
Politician
Scientist
Screenwriter
Xamar
Atheism
Dissonance
Longer
Christopher
Hear
Cognitive
Find
Pleased
Muslim
Liberal
Necessity
Atheist

More quotes by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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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.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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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
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In 1985 as a teenager in Kenya, I was an adamant member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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I would rather clean than beg.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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I wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that Islam is peace and tolerance.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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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.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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I do not believe in God, angels and the hereafter.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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I would like to be judged on the validity of my arguments, not as a victim.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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I want people to emphasize life before death as opposed to life after death.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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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
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As soon as something like Monty Python's 'The Life of Brian' appears with a Muhammad figure as the main lead, directed by an Arabic Theo van Gogh, the controversial late Dutch filmmaker, we will have taken an enormous step forward.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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I don't believe there is such a thing as 'moderate Islam.' I think it's better to talk about degrees of belief and degrees of practice.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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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
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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
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The West is duly terrified. But it should not be surprised.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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The people who believe themselves to be on the left, and who defend the agents of Islam in the name of tolerance and culture, are being rightwing. Not just rightwing. Extreme rightwing. I don't understand how you can be so upset about the Christian right and just ignore the Islamic right. I'm talking about equality.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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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.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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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
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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