Quotes from John Rawls

In constant pursuit of money to finance campaigns, the political system is simply unable to function. Its deliberative powers are paralyzed.

The extreme nature of dominant-end views is often concealed by the vagueness and ambiguity of the end proposed.

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

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

Public reason arguments can be good or bad just like other arguments.

It is of first importance that the military be subordinate to civilian government

There is a divergence between private and social accounting that the market fails to register. One essential task of law and government is to institute the necessary conditions.

Justice is happiness according to virtue.

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

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

A society regulated by a public sense of justice is inherently stable.

No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.

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 strength of the claims of formal justice, of obedience to system, clearly depend upon the substantive justice of institutions and the possibilities of their reform.

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

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.

Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.

In constant pursuit of money to finance campaigns, the political system is simply unable to function. Its deliberative powers are paralyzed.

The limitation of liberty is justified only when it is necessary for liberty itself, to prevent an invasion of freedom that would be still worse.

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

a fim de tratar as pessoas igualitariamente, a sociedade deve dar atenção àqueles com menos dotes inatos e aos oriundos de posições sociais menos favoráveis. A ideia é de reparar o desvio das contingências na direção da igualdade

Along with such things as free and regular elections and an independent judiciary empowered to interpret the constitution (not necessarily written), civil disobedience used with due restraint and sound judgment helps to maintain and strengthen just institutions.

It may be expedient but it is not just that some should have less in order that others may prosper.

A gloomy, harebrained enthusiast, after his death may have a place in the calendar; but will scarcely ever be admitted, when alive, into intimacy and society, except by those who are as delirious and dismal as himself" (E:II:27o).