Waris Dirie famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

Womenâ€™s loyalty has to be earned with trust and affection, rather than barbaric rituals. The time has come to leave the old ways of suffering behind
-- Waris Dirie

#Loyalty #Suffering #Way
If you can survive in the desert, you survive anywhere. I know more than anything life in desert. You can tell by looking at the dirt how long ago it rained, how hard it rained, how much water came through. You can by looking at a plant, a tree, from an animal's look. I can read the desert like I read my hand.
-- Waris Dirie

#Animal #Hands #Water
Every day, women move mountains. It is an insult to have an international women's day.
-- Waris Dirie

#Moving #Mountain #Insult
My mother named me after a miracle of nature: Waris means desert flower. The desert flower blooms in a barren environment where few living things can survive.
-- Waris Dirie

#Mother #Flower #Mean
Mama tied a blindfold over my eyes. The next thing I felt my flesh was being cut away. I heard the blade sawing back and forth through my skin. The pain between my legs was so intense I wished I would die.
-- Waris Dirie

#Pain #Eye #Cutting
Because women and girls are not valued equally as human beings, they are treated as less than such. Female genital mutilation is one example of this that has to be stopped.
-- Waris Dirie

#Girl #Example #Female
Donâ€™t do to your daughters what has been done to you! They are perfect and beautiful.
-- Waris Dirie

#Beautiful #Daughter #Perfect
I still do find it very difficult in the West to connect to this politeness of smiling, not saying how you're thinking or not saying how you really feel.
-- Waris Dirie

#Thinking #West #Difficult
I love life. I wish I could live another 500 years, truly. There is so much to do. I don't feel bitter or angry or disappointed. If anything, I am very grateful for where I come from. I have absolutely no regrets.
-- Waris Dirie

#Regret #Grateful #Love Life
Fashion is fun, ridiculously fun. But it's base and it's wrong. You're not doing anything good for the world. You're just saying, 'Buy it, buy it, buy it.
-- Waris Dirie

#Fashion #Fun #World
Sometimes I wonder where I am from. I am either way ahead or I come from another world. I don't recognise this world.
-- Waris Dirie

#World #Way #Sometimes
Personal style? I don't really believe in that. Whatever is comfortable.
-- Waris Dirie

#Believe #Style #Personal Style
I've never been one to stay still. I was born a nomad, and I still am a nomad and always will be.
-- Waris Dirie

#Born #Nomad #Stills
I love the truth. Tell the truth and live the truth, because we've seen enough lies and look what it's doing.
-- Waris Dirie

#Lying #Looks #Telling The Truth
I don't know what a supermodel is. If they call me that, I might have to punch them. It's just so vain and so unreal.
-- Waris Dirie

#Might #Vain #Call Me
Many friends have expressed concern that a religious fanatic will try to kill me when I go to Africa. After all, Iâ€™ll be speaking out against a crime many fundamentalists consider a holy practice. Iâ€™m sure my work will be dangerous, and I admit to being scaredâ€¦. But my faith tells me to be strong, that God led me down this path for a reason. He has work for me to do. This is my mission. And I believe that long before the day I was born, God chose the day I will die, so I canâ€™t change that. In the meantime, I might as well take a chance, because thatâ€™s what Iâ€™ve done all my life.
-- Waris Dirie

#Religious #Strong #Believe
Brooklyn's good. Brooklyn's funky. Brooklyn's happening.
-- Waris Dirie

#Brooklyn #Funky
Female genital mutilation targets little girls, baby girls - fragile angels who are helpless, who cannot fight back. It's a crime against a child, a crime against humanity. It's abuse. It's absolutely criminal and we have to stop it.
-- Waris Dirie

#Girl #Baby #Children
FGM breaches all human rights and has no place in any 21st century society.
-- Waris Dirie

#Rights #Century #Humans
Laws are important. But they can only be effective if the people know about the particular laws.
-- Waris Dirie

#Law #People #Important
I belong nowhere and to no one.
-- Waris Dirie

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