The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.

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

A political conception just applies to the basic structure of a society, its institutions, constitutional essentials, matters of basic justice and property, and so on.

A political conception covers the right to vote, the political virtues, and the good of political life, but it doesn't intend to cover anything else.

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.

Properly understood, then, the desire to act justly derives in part from the desire to express most fully what we are or can be, namely free and equal rational beings with the liberty to choose.

Many of our most serious conflicts are conflicts within ourselves. Those who suppose their judgements are always consistent are unreflective or dogmatic.