Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes
This is exactly how minds are opened: through honest, frank dialogue. Tears may be shed, but not blood.
Quotes to Explore
-
I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that's not what America's about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don't contract them.
-
Instead of building walls, we should be building bridges.
-
What I generally get from being in Africa is a sense of warmth and openness. As a stranger, you are always welcomed into people's homes and people are always offering you food. That generosity is incredibly touching.
-
I don't think that I ever believed that poetry would be a career. I have always thought of poems as something more private than professional... I would never introduce myself as a poet. I will always have some other thing that I am.
-
A woman who places a high priority on performance and excellence is seen as imperial. A man is seen as demanding and tough.
-
It's abhorrent to me that somebody is just evil, and you can't explain it.
-
I educated myself. To me, school was boring.
-
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
-
Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg didn't finish college. Too much emphasis is placed on formal education - I told my children not to worry about their grades but to enjoy learning.
-
Ice-skating is a dangerous proposition and tennis is going to be something I'm probably not very good at.
-
Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?
-
I joke that we're not dissimilar to a rock band in the '70s.
-
I know everyone in the Philippines is happy.
-
To have a sense of style, it shows you know yourself. People like that.
-
A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.
-
When India got independence, entrepreneurs were seen as a bad lot, as people who would exploit.
-
Rates of black poverty have decreased. Black teen-pregnancy rates are at record lows - and the gap between black and white teen-pregnancy rates has shrunk significantly. But such progress rests on a shaky foundation, and fault lines are everywhere.
-
I'm very pro-American - my entire family escaped poverty in Italy because they rightly believed in the American dream.
-
Great entrepreneurs focus intensely on an opportunity where others see nothing. This focus and intensity helps to eliminate wasted effort and distractions. Most companies die from indigestion rather than starvation, i.e., companies suffer from doing too many things at the same time rather than doing too few things very well.
-
It is no compliment to be the stupidly idolised master of a dog whose instinct it is to idolise, but it is a very distinct tribute to be chosen as the friend and confidant of a philosophic cat who is wholly his own master and could easily choose another companion if he found such an one more agreeable and interesting.
-
If something just plain didn’t make sense to Alvin, he didn’t believe it, and no amount of quoting from the Bible would convince him. Now Taleswapper was telling him that he was right to refuse to believe things that made no sense.
-
It's important to have people around who love themselves, are true to themselves, who have their own hobbies and their world doesn't revolve around Hollywood. I can always go to my family with any doubts or questions I may have.
-
We're all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made.
-
This is exactly how minds are opened: through honest, frank dialogue. Tears may be shed, but not blood.
