- "A critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy. The press must be free from state interference. It must have the economic strength to stand up to the blandishments of government officials. It must have sufficient independence from vested interests to be bold and inquiring without fear or favour. It must enjoy the protection of the constitution, so that it can protect our rights as citizens." (Nelson Mandela)
- "'Socialism' is no more an evil word than 'Christianity'. Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered churches than Christianity prescribed the Spanish Inquisition. Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated to the proposition that all men, women, and children are created equal and shall not starve." (Kurt Vonnegut)
- "The story of meritocracy -- a society that migrates wealth, status, and decision-making power into the hands of the most capable -- is seductive. Rich people love the idea of meritocracy, because the alternative is that their lion's share is unfair, the product of luck, or, worse, cheating. But many of meritocracy's losers love it, too. In the [disputed] words of John Steinbeck, 'Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.'" (Cory Doctorow)
- "[Some] states are on the verge of reversing decades-old laws about homosexual relationships and marijuana use. If the old laws could have been perfectly enforced through surveillance, society would never have reached the point where the majority of citizens thought those things were okay. There has to be a period where they are still illegal yet increasingly tolerated, so that people can look around and say, 'You know, that wasn't so bad.' Yes, the process takes decades, but it's a process that can't happen without lawbreaking. [...] The perfect enforcement that comes with ubiquitous government surveillance chills this process. We need imperfect security -- systems that free people to try new things [...]. Freedoms we now take for granted were often at one time viewed as threatening or even criminal by the past power structure. Those changes might never have happened if the authorities had been able to achieve social control through surveillance. This is one of the main reasons all of us should care about [...] surveillance, even if we are not personally chilled by its existence. We suffer the effects because people around us will be less likely to proclaim new political or social ideas, or act out of the ordinary. If J. Edgar Hoover's surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. had been successful in silencing him, it would have affected far more people than King and his family." (Bruce Schneier)
- "What is [...] damaging -- and [...] engaging, and thus lucrative for Facebook -- is all of us in our own virtual neighborhoods of our own making, liking opinions that tell us we're right instead of engaging with viewpoints that make us question our assumptions." (Ben Thompson)
- "As Cass Sunstein and others have shown, people become more extreme when they're around others who share their beliefs. [...] [T]he internet makes it easy to settle in a virtual neighborhood with people who agree with you. Polarization is going to get a lot worse before it starts getting better." (Ezra Klein)
- "No woman in a burqa (or a hijab or a burkini) has ever done me any harm. But I was sacked (without explanation) by a man in a suit. Men in suits missold me pensions and endowments, costing me thousands of pounds. A man in a suit led us on a disastrous and illegal war. Men in suits led the banks and crashed the world economy. Other men in suits then increased the misery to millions through austerity. If we are to start telling people what to wear, maybe we should ban suits." (Henry Stewart)
- "No country is immune from terrorism. It's easy to terrorize. Government and law enforcement have to be correct 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year." (John Kerry)
- "Throughout history, reliance on terrorism has been the tactic of movements that were weak and had little popular support. The goal of terrorist attacks is always to provoke an overreaction that will increase support for the terrorist's cause." (Greg G.)
- "Disillusionment and cynicism have become natural byproducts of everyday journalism. [...] As a result, what audiences see beyond their direct experience is a world of unchecked pathology, and it makes it all too easy to fear and demonize others. It shapes people's behaviors and choice of leaders." (David Bornstein and Tina Rosenberg)
- "Since the early 1970s, surveys conducted annually have revealed that trust and confidence in virtually all American institutions -- government, corporations, banks, medicine, education, organized religion and, yes, the press -- have been declining steadily." (David Bornstein and Tina Rosenberg)
- "[M]any Americans today have difficulty imagining, valuing or even believing in the promise of incremental system change, which leads to a greater appetite for revolutionary, smash-the-machine change [...]." (David Bornstein and Tina Rosenberg)
- "The best defense against the fear-mongering of the demagogue is to reveal the decency, competence and courage of people determined to fix their society." (David Bornstein and Tina Rosenberg)