The intolerant can be viewed as free-riders, as persons who seek the advantages of just institutions while not doing their share to uphold them.

A just society is a society that if you knew everything about it, you'd be willing to enter it in a random place.

The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have.

Ideal legislators do not vote their interests.

You hear that liberalism lacks an idea of the common good, but I think that's a mistake.

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.

Any comprehensive doctrine, religious or secular, can be introduced into any political argument at any time, but I argue that people who do this should also present what they believe are public reasons for their argument. So their opinion is no longer just that of one particular party, but an opinion that all members of a society might reasonably agree to, not necessarily that they would agree to. What's important is that people give the kinds of reasons that can be understood and appraised apart from their particular comprehensive doctrines.