The doctrine that there is as much science in a subject as... mathematics in it, or as much... measurement or 'precision' in it, rests upon... misunderstanding.

...no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.

In brief, it is my thesis that human misery is the most urgent problem of a rational public policy and that happiness is not such a problem.

I do not overlook the fact that there are irrationalists who love mankind, and that not all forms of irrationalism engender criminality. But I hold that he who teaches that not reason but love should rule opens up the way for those who rule by hate. (Socrates, I believe, saw something of this when he suggested that mistrust or hatred of argument is related to mistrust or hatred of man).

I am a rationalist. ...I mean ...[I] wish... to understand the world, and to learn by arguing with others. (...I do not say a rationalist holds the mistaken theory that men are... rational.)

I think so badly of philosophy that I don't like to talk about it. ... I do not want to say anything bad about my dear colleagues, but the profession of teacher of philosophy is a ridiculous one. We don't need a thousand of trained, and badly trained, philosophers - it is very silly. Actually most of them have nothing to say.

The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. But science is one of the very few human activities - perhaps the only one - in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected. This is why we can say that, in science, we often learn from our mistakes, and why we can speak clearly and sensibly about making progress there.

We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.

I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation.

The concept of justice I take to be defined, then, by the role of its principles in assigning rights and duties and in defining the appropriate division of social advantages. A conception of justice is an interpretation of this role.

The fault of the utilitarian doctrine is that it mistakes impersonality for impartiality.

A scheme is unjust when the higher expectations, one or more of them, are excessive. If these expectations were decreased, the situation of the less favored would be improved.

Ideal legislators do not vote their interests.

I have assumed throughout that the persons in the original position are rational.

An intuitionist conception of justice is, one might say, but half a conception.

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

First of all, no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like. Nor, again, does anyone know his conception of the good, the particulars of his rational plan of life, or even the special features of psychology such as his aversion to risk or liability to optimism or pessimism. More than this, I assume that the parties do not know the particular circumstances of their own society. That is, they do not know its particular economic or political situation, or the level of civilization and culture it has been able to achieve. The persons in the original position have no information as to which generation they belong.

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

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

Ideally a just constitution would be a just procedure arranged to insure a just outcome.

The even larger difference between rich and poor makes the latter even worse off, and this violates the principle of mutual advantage.

Justice is happiness according to virtue.

Inequalities are permissible when they maximize, or at least all contribute to, the long term expectations of the least fortunate group in society.

We may suppose that everyone has in himself the whole form of a moral conception.

Essentially the fault lies in the fact that the democratic political process is at best regulated rivalry; it does not even in theory have the desirable properties that price theory ascribes to truly competitive markets.

There are infinitely many variations of the initial situation and therefore no doubt indefinitely many theorems of moral geometry.

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.

Social and economic inequalities, for example inequalities of wealth and authority, are just only if they result in compensating benefits for everyone, and in particular for the least advantaged members of society.

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

In justice as fairness society is interpreted as a cooperative venture for mutual advantage.

The intolerant can be viewed as free-riders, as persons who seek the advantages of just institutions while not doing their share to uphold them.

Yet it seems extraordinary that the justice of increasing the expectations of the better placed by a billion dollars, say, should turn on whether the prospects of the least favored increase or decrease by a penny.

Intuitionism is not constructive, perfectionism is unacceptable.

The fundamental criterion for judging any procedure is the justice of its likely results.

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

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

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

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.

Greater intelligence, wealth and opportunity, for example, allow a person to achieve ends he could not rationally contemplate otherwise.

Many conservative writers have contended that the tendency to equality in modern social movements is the expression of envy. In this way they seek to discredit this trend, attributing it to collectively harmful impulses.

This is a long book, not only in pages.

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.

Our concern is solely with the basic structure of society and its major institutions and therefore with the standard cases of social justice.

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.

First of all, principles should be general. That is, it must be possible to formulate them without use of what would be intuitively recognized as proper names, or rigged definite descriptions.

I have tried to set forth a theory that enables us to understand and to assess these feelings about the primacy of justice. Justice as fairness is the outcome: it articulates these opinions and supports their general tendency.

A conception of justice cannot be deduced from self evident premises or conditions on principles; instead, its justification is a matter of the mutual support of many considerations, of everything fitted together into one coherent view.

The suppression of liberty is always likely to be irrational.

The difference principle, for example, requires that the higher expectations of the more advantaged contribute to the prospects of the least advantaged.

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.