"Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests."

“Justice does not require that men must stand idly by while others destroy the basis of their existence.”

“The hazards of the generalized prisoner's dilemma are removed by the match between the right and the good.”

“We must not be enticed by mathematically attractive assumptions into pretending that the contingencies of men's social positions and the asymmetries of their situations somehow even out in the end. Rather we must choose our conception of justice fully recognizing that this is not and cannot be the case.”

“Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Original Position by Fred D'Agostino”

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

“That persons have opposing interests and seek to advance their own conception of the good is not at all the same thing as their being moved by envy and jealousy.”