Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes

If we don't take effective measures now, the Netherlands could be torn between two extreme rights.

Islam is not a race...Islam is simply a set of beliefs, and it is not 'Islamophobic' to say Islam is incompatible with liberal democracy.

There is a huge difference between being tolerant and tolerating intolerance

Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice.

The more we oblige, the more we self-censor, the more we appease, the bolder the enemy gets.

I love life more than I love death.

It takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage.

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

Where there is no freedom of speech, there is no conscience.

Avoiding offense means that we don't accept each other as equals.

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.

I wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that Islam is peace and tolerance.

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

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.

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.

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.

I see no difference between Islam and Islamism. Islam is defined as submission to the will of Allah, as it is described in the Koran. Islamism is just Islam in its most pure form.

My friend, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was murdered in 2004 for having been insufficiently reverent toward Islam.

Reality is not easy, but all this make-believe doesn't make it easier.

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.

The Christian take on Hellfire seems less dramatic than the Muslim vision, which I grew up with, but Christian magical thinking appeals to me no more than my mother's angels and djinns.

Liberal capitalism is not perfect, but compared to the other 'isms,' it's far superior.

However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.

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.

I would like to be judged on the validity of my arguments, not as a victim.

I'd like Muslims to look at their religion as a set of beliefs that they can appraise critically and pick and choose from.

Free speech is the bedrock of liberty and a free society. And yes, it includes the right to blaspheme and offend.

In 1985 as a teenager in Kenya, I was an adamant member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

I don't have much in me left for Somalia, because the country is so broken, it's not realistic to daydream about it.

I do not believe in God, angels and the hereafter.

I grew up in Somalia, in Saudi Arabia, in Ethiopia, and in Kenya. I came to Europe in 1992, when I was 22, and became a member of Parliament in Holland.

Americans have always welcomed people of all backgrounds, religions, and races. It's a spirit of tolerance, now energized and amplified by the cult of multiculturalism.

Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to reading the history of ideas.

There are some mosques with facilities for women; it's usually a back room with a back-door entrance.

...Bear true witness, even if it be against yourselves, your parents or your family.

We must reclaim and retake feminism from our fellow idiotic women.

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.

The idea that if people are just friendly and demonstrate they want peace, that will be answered with good will - that is really naive.

I want people to emphasize life before death as opposed to life after death.

I call myself a liberal - a classical liberal as in John Stuart Mill.

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.

What I find daunting always is to stand on a stage and talk to people, whether they agree with me or not.

In 2010, I suggested that if you are a good Muslim with a good conscience, go and look for a better God, and I think that was juvenile of me.

But without doubts, without a standpoint reached through questionings, human beings can't acquire knowledge.

Every time I went on TV I got a threat.

If such a young nation as the U.S. could make it to superpower status, we could do it as well.

All my life I have been a nomad.

My conscience is informed by reason. It's like Kant's categorical imperative: behave to others as you would wish they behaved to you.

I would rather clean than beg.

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.