Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Profession : Politician

Birth : November 13, 1969

Christians - at least Christians in a liberal democracy - have accepted, after Thomas Hobbes, that they must obey the secular rule of law; that there must be a separation of church and state.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I come from a world where the word 'trauma' doesn't exist, because we are too poor. I didn't have an easy life compared to the average European. But compared to the average African, it wasn't all that bad.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I am not against migration. It is simply pragmatic to restrict migration, while at the same time encouraging integration and fighting discrimination. I support the idea of the free movement of goods, people, money and jobs in Europe.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

There's peacetime and there's wartime, and you don't need polarization on wartime issues. You need polarization on all other issues.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I was a Muslim once, remember, and it was when I was most devout that I was most full of hate.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Unlike the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth, the umma, or Muslim community, has no symbolic leader, let alone a formal one.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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

I confront the European elite's self-image as tolerant 'while under their noses women are living like slaves.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

When I was with the Labor Party, I'd get into trouble because the party bosses determined that some of what I wrote, or proposed to write about, wasn't conducive to their policies or to electoral success.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

When your life is threatened, whether it's by human beings or by disease or whatever, you come to appreciate life.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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

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

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

Catholics should be proselytizing about a God who is love, who represents a hereafter where there's no hell, who wants you to lead a life where you can confess your sins and feel much better afterwards. Those are lovely concepts of God.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Of course, the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists or sympathetic to terrorists. Equating all Muslims with terrorism is stupid and wrong.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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

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

Many people in Europe and the U.S. dispute the thesis that we are living through a clash of civilisations between Islam and the west. But a radical minority of Muslims firmly believes that Islam is under siege, and is committed to winning the holy war it has declared against the West.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The concept of God in Jewish orthodoxy is one where you're having constant quarrels with God. Where I come from, in Islam, the only concept of God is you submit to Him and you obey His commands; no quarreling allowed.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

When a 'Life of Brian' comes out with Muhammad in the lead role, directed by an Arab equivalent of Theo van Gogh, it will be a huge step forward.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali