The good of political life is the good of free and equal citizens recognizing the duty of civility to one another and supporting the institutions of a constitutional regime.

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.

There are two kinds of comprehensive doctrines, religious and secular. Those of religious faith will say I give a veiled argument for secularism, and the latter will say I give a veiled argument for religion. I deny both. Each side presumes the basic ideas of constitutional democracy, so my suggestion is that we can make our political arguments in terms of public reason. Then we stand on common ground. That's how we can understand each other and cooperate.

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

I live in a country where 90 or 95 percent of the people profess to be religious, and maybe they are religious, though my experience of religion suggests that very few people are actually religious in more than a conventional sense.

Religious faith is an important aspect of American culture and a fact of American political life.

Citizens can have their own grounding in their comprehensive doctrines, whatever they happen to be.