Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I would rather clean than beg.
All my life I have been a nomad.
Every time I went on TV I got a threat.
I do not believe in God, angels and the hereafter.
Avoiding offense means that we don't accept each other as equals.
I call myself a liberal - a classical liberal as in John Stuart Mill.
In 1985 as a teenager in Kenya, I was an adamant member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Liberal capitalism is not perfect, but compared to the other 'isms,' it's far superior.
I was a Muslim once, remember, and it was when I was most devout that I was most full of hate.
If such a young nation as the U.S. could make it to superpower status, we could do it as well.
If we don't take effective measures now, the Netherlands could be torn between two extreme rights.
There are some mosques with facilities for women; it's usually a back room with a back-door entrance.
I think of Canada, first and foremost, in terms of space. The amount of space available is breathtaking.
What I find daunting always is to stand on a stage and talk to people, whether they agree with me or not.
I confront the European elite's self-image as tolerant 'while under their noses women are living like slaves.
No one in the American Enterprise imposes their beliefs. We clash, and I think that's what the West is all about.
When your life is threatened, whether it's by human beings or by disease or whatever, you come to appreciate life.
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 am grateful to my father for sending me to school, and that we moved from Somalia to Kenya, where I learned English.
My friend, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was murdered in 2004 for having been insufficiently reverent toward Islam.
I'd like Muslims to look at their religion as a set of beliefs that they can appraise critically and pick and choose from.
Unlike the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth, the umma, or Muslim community, has no symbolic leader, let alone a formal one.
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.
There's peacetime and there's wartime, and you don't need polarization on wartime issues. You need polarization on all other issues.
My conscience is informed by reason. It's like Kant's categorical imperative: behave to others as you would wish they behaved to you.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Of course, the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists or sympathetic to terrorists. Equating all Muslims with terrorism is stupid and wrong.
It's wrong to treat Muslims as if they will never find their John Stuart Mill. Christianity and Judaism show people can be very dogmatic and then open up.
With the first commandment, Mohammed tried to imprison common sense. And with the second commandment, the beautiful, romantic side of mankind was enslaved.
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.
When I was in Holland, the idea was, all cultures are equal and all are to be preserved. My idea was, no, all humans are equal, but not all cultures are equal.
Muslim leaders should ask themselves what exactly their relationship is to a political movement that encourages young men to kill and maim on religious grounds.
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.
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.
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.
Over the course of my life, I have made many transitions - most of them taking me further away from my Somali roots and steadily toward the enlightened mentality of Western democracy.
Even with protection, even with death threats, I can publish, I can travel and I can live the life that I want and not the one my parents want or some imam somewhere thinks I should live.
I accept that there are multitudes seeking God, seeking meaning, and so on, but if they reject atheism, I would rather they became modern-day Catholics or Jews than that they became Muslims.
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.
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.
A Western woman is not her brother's or her father's property. She's just herself. She can choose her own lifestyle. But in a Muslim family, the honor of the man is between the legs of a woman.
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.
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.
I'd love to go and visit the Mosque in Mecca again, just for the sheer beauty of it, not for God - much the way a non-Catholic might go to Vatican City because of the beauty of the buildings and the artifacts.
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.
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.