The first principle of a free ...

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

More phrases

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.
 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.
The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.
 Thích Nhất Hạnh
Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom - and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.

Quotes from the same author

The free press is the mother of all our liberties and of our progress under liberty.
 Adlai E. Stevenson
As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end.
 Adlai E. Stevenson
Someone asked me...how it felt and I was reminded of a story that a fellow townsman of ours used to tell--Abraham Lincoln. They asked him how he felt once after an unsuccessful election. He said he felt like a little boy who had stubbed his toe in the dark. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh.
 Adlai E. Stevenson
That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in another.
 Adlai E. Stevenson
Not to destroy but to construct, I hold the unconquerable belief that science and peace will triumph over ignorance and war that nations will come together not to destroy but to construct and that the future belongs to those who accomplish most for humanity.
 Adlai E. Stevenson