The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum.

Two things form the bedrock of any open society—freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don't have those things, you don't have a free country.

The people currently in charge have forgotten the first principle of an open society, namely that we may be wrong and that there has to be free discussion. That it's possible to be opposed to the policies without being unpatriotic.

"Two things form the bedrock of any open society — freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don’t have those things, you don’t have a free country."

[Don’t allow religious hooligans to dictate terms (The Times of India, January 16, 2008)]

In a free state there should be freedom of speech and thought.

I want to suggest to you that citizens of free societies, democracies, do not preserve their freedom by pussyfooting around their fellow-citizen's opinions, even their most cherished beliefs. In free societies, you must have the free play of ideas. There must be argument, and it must be impassioned and untrammeled. A free society is not calm and eventless place - that is the kind of static, dead society dictators try to create. Free societies are dynamic, noisy, turbulent, and full of radical disagreements. Skepticism and freedom are indissolubly linked; and it is the skepticism of journalists, their show-me, prove-it unwillingness to be impressed, that is perhaps their most important contribution to the freedom of the free world. It is the disrespect of journalists-for power, for orthodoxies, for party lines, for ideologies, for vanity, for arrogance, for folly, for pretension, for corruption, for stupidity, maybe even for editors-that I would like to celebrate...and that I urge you all, in freedom's name, to preserve.

Will advance by having no opinion protected from discussion and agitation, by having the greatest possible freedom of thought, of speech, and of the press.

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

Free speech – proper, full-blooded free speech – is the lifeblood of any progressive politics and of any progressive transformation of society. If we treasure the one, we must treasure the other.

Equally manifest as a fundamental principle of a democratic society is political freedom of the individual. Our form of government is built on the premise that every citizen shall have the right to engage in political expression and association. This right was enshrined in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Exercise of these basic freedoms in America has traditionally been through the media of political associations. Any interference with the freedom of a party is simultaneously an interference with the freedom of its adherents. All political ideas cannot and should not be channeled into the programs of our two major parties. History has amply proved the virtue of political activity by minority, dissident groups, who innumerable times have been in the vanguard of democratic thought and whose programs were ultimately accepted. Mere unorthodoxy or dissent from the prevailing mores is not to be condemned. The absence of such voices would be a symptom of grave illness in our society.

Freedom of expression is one of the foundations of our society. Everyone is free to express their opinion. But our society will never accept indiscriminate violence, and even less towards our police forces.

The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people is the greatest and only safety in a sane society.

Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.

In principle, an open society sees information flow as a good thing, to be hampered only in the presence of strong evidence that harm cannot be prevented by any other means.