1. “The principle of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.”
2. “It is a feature of human sociability that we are by ourselves but parts of what we might be.”
3. “It may be expedient but it is not just that some should have less in order that others may prosper.”
4. “The fairest rules are those which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have.”
5. “Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of social systems of thought.”
6. “Injustice, then, is simply inequalities that are no to the benefit of all.”
7. “An injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice.”
8. “Many of our most serious conflicts are conflicts within ourselves. Those who suppose their judgements are always consistent are unreflective or dogmatic.”
9. “We strive for the best we can attain within the scope the world allows.”
10. “The sense of justice is continuous with the love of mankind.”
11. “A just system must generate its own support.”
12. “The bad man desires arbitrary power. What moves the evil man is love of injustice.”
13. “A just society is a society that if you knew everything about it, you’d be willing to enter it in a random place.”
14. “No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.”
15. “Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”
16. “The fault of the utilitarian doctrine is that it mistakes impersonality for impartiality.”
17. “There are various ways you might define the common good, but that would be one way you could do it.”
18. “Justice is happiness according to virtue.”
19. “An intuitionist conception of justice is, on might say, but half a conception.”
20. “Clearly when the liberties are left unrestricted they collide with one another.”
21. “The circumstances of justice may be described as the normal conditions under which human cooperation is both possible and necessary.”
22. “Justice as fairness provides what we want.”
23. “Ideal legislators do not vote their interests.”
24. “You hear that liberalism lacks an idea of the common good, but I think that’s a mistake.”
25. “The idea of public reason isn’t about the right answers to all these questions, but about the kinds of reasons that they ought to be answered by.”
26. “Public reason arguments can be good or bad just like other arguments.”
27. “At best the principles that economists have supposed the choices of rational individuals to satisfy can be presented as guidelines for us to consider when we make our decisions.”
28. “Intuitionalism is not constructive, perfectionism is unacceptable.”
29. “There are infinitely many variations of the initial situation and therefore no doubt indefinitely many theorems of moral geometry.”
30. “Citizens can have their own grounding in their comprehensive doctrines, whatever they happen to be.”
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