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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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Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: November 13
Activist
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Feminist
Journalist
Politician
Scientist
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More quotes by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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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
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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
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I don't believe in hell and heaven anymore. Or angels. I think Islam is a superstition like every other superstition. But now because it's a superstition, unlike Christianity, that hasn't been tested and hasn't gone through a process of enlightenment, I think it's a dangerous superstition.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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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
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Most unmarried Somali girls who got pregnant committed suicide. I knew of one girl in Mogadishu who poured a can of gasoline over herself in the living room, with everyone there, and burned herself alive. Of course, if she hadn't done this, her father and brothers would probably have killed her anyway.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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As a woman you are better off in life earning your own money. You couldn't prevent your husband from leaving you or taking another wife, but you could have some of your dignity if you didn't have to beg him for financial support.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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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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I call myself a liberal - a classical liberal as in John Stuart Mill.
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 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
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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
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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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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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...Bear true witness, even if it be against yourselves, your parents or your family.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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Reality is not easy, but all this make-believe doesn't make it easier.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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There is one Islam, unreformed, but three sets of Muslims. Medina, Mecca, and. Dissidents, reformers, whatever you want to call them. The first group are the extremists and fundamentalists, the second the great mass of Muslims who just want to live their lives in peace, and the third are reformers.
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 wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that Islam is peace and tolerance.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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We must reclaim and retake feminism from our fellow idiotic women.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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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