Ideally citizens are to think of themselves as if they were legislators and ask themselves what statutes, supported by what reasons satisfying the criterion of reciprocity, they would think is most reasonable to enact.

Clearly when the liberties are left unrestricted they collide with one another.

We must choose for others as we have reason to believe they would choose for themselves if they were at the age of reason and deciding rationally.

The perspective of eternity is not a perspective from a certain place beyond the world, nor the point of view of a transcendent being; rather it is a certain form of thought and feeling that rational persons can adopt within the world ... Purity of heart, if one could attain it, would be to see clearly and to act with grace and self-command from this point of view.

An injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice.

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.

The circumstances of justice may be described as the normal conditions under which human cooperation is both possible and necessary.