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.

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.

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

Certainly it is wrong to be cruel to animals and the destruction of a whole species can be a great evil. The capacity for feelings of pleasure and pain and for the form of life of which animals are capable clearly impose duties of compassion and humanity in their case.

The bad man desires arbitrary power. What moves the evil man is the love of injustice.

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.

Justice as fairness provides what we want.

I have done things politically, and I've been running a business at the same time, but I sort of joke that to some extent I do more than most legislators have done in their whole careers, and I've been doing it as a part-time job.

Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

We're going to march on Washington with a host of Republicans, Democrats, business leaders, legislators.

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.

It's not about the money. This is about Terri. It's not about the Schindlers, it's not about the legislators, it's not about me, it's about what Terri Schiavo wanted.

And, in the past, it has been all too easy for legislators to load costs onto business in order to meet broader social goals. And costs for business means costs for consumers.

I've been not only articulating the dissatisfaction with Albany, I've been acting on it. I've been very aggressive in bringing public integrity cases and public corruption cases and bringing cases against sitting legislators.

People underestimate the impact they can have on the process through contact with legislators. By being part of an organized group in an area that you have an interest in, you can multiply the impact of your own ideas.

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.

Let us tell our legislators in advance, that this is a right, restraints on which, we will not, cannot bear; and that every attempt to restrain it is a palpable wrong on God and man.

This source of corruption, alas, is inherent in the democratic system itself, and it can only be controlled, if at all, by finding ways to encourage legislators to subordinate ambition to principle.

The important thing to understand about legislators is that there are dozens of competing interests and issues that occupy them. They are stretched thin.

When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.

What is the harm of doing the right thing? What is the harm of doing our job as legislators and making sure we do not stick the entire bankruptcy community with these provisions that do not make any sense?

The acknowledged legislators of the world take the world as given. They dislike mysteries, for mysteries cannot be coded, or legislated, and wonder cannot be made into law. And so these legislators police the accepted frontiers of things.

We live in a stage of politics, where legislators seem to regard the passage of laws as much more important than the results of their enforcement.

It has now become a very common sentiment, that there is some deep and radical wrong somewhere, and that legislators have proved themselves incapable of discovering, or, of remedying it.

I believe Congress has a duty to do so as well; not simply as a body of legislators, but more importantly as a community of friends, neighbors, parents and Americans.

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.

But do not understand me as saying, or for one moment suggesting, that women legislators should confine themselves to doing only social service work. Not at all.

We asserted ourselves as a music community, and showed legislators that music is positive. Especially if you've sold 300 million records worldwide and pay taxes.

As attorney general, I can either look into it or I can ignore it because they're a bunch of powerful legislators... and I'm afraid they're going to cut my budget.

Those who have heard or read anything from me on the subject, know that one of the principal points insisted on is, the forming of societies or any other artificial combinations IS the first, greatest, and most fatal mistake ever committed by legislators and by reformers.

We see things like reciprocity which are fairly central to our view of ethics. But if you're talking about a set of worked-out rules on what we are supposed to do then, yes, it is a human product.

I don't consider myself a comedian because I don't really concern myself too much with jokes.

I was very inspired by Les Blank's film 'Burden of Dreams.' I think what's unique about his film and the two I've made is that they're close examinations of filmmakers and how their own emotional experiences reflect in the material they're rendering, and vice versa - how that material sometimes colors their own lives.

Self-examination - when the whole world around you is pressuring that and challenging you - is very, very hard. Looking at a whole structure - in my case, let us say of snobbery, basking in certain privileges, marks of what appear to be superiority - that's ugly to look at.

My favorite laser disk ever was the laser disk for The Graduate, which had a commentary track that wasn't even the filmmakers, it was a professor, some film criticism guy who just happen to be this amazing commentator who went off into the whole theory of comedy.

I set myself challenges every time I work. Ideally, I approach everything as though it's the first time - with a beginner's mind and an amateur's love.

We know now that in modern warfare, fought on any considerable scale, there can be no possible economic gain for any side. Win or lose, there is nothing but waste and destruction.

I make my own limits which are drawn according to my own taste.

The British were sporting. They would accept a fight under almost all conditions.

It's one of the tragic ironies of the theatre that only one man in it can count on steady work - the night watchman.

I love going on tour and playing music for people.

The poorest people are the sweetest people.

Music looks very formidable to people outside of it and it looks like it's this realm of spooky genius.

The directors thought, They understand nothing in the real economy, in real life. They read some stupid books, and they came from the moon to the earth, and maybe in one month they will disappear.

I think the government should be out of the marriage business and leave marriage to the churches.

I always try to keep a little bit of space in the year to work with other people. Because I love doing musicals, films and plays - projects where I'm not in charge, where I've got somebody else telling me what to do and I have to work with their vision.

Since the early Nineties it's been very fashionable to say, 'It's all about the music.'

Always believe in the good things coming.