Quotable Russell

I should like, if time were longer and if I knew more than I do, to spend a whole lecture on the conception of vagueness. Vagueness is very much more important in the theory of knowledge than you would judge it to be from [most] writings. Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise, and everything precise is so remote from everything that we normally think, that you cannot for a moment suppose that is what we really mean when we say what we think. When you pass from the vague to the precise by the method of analysis and reflection that I am speaking of, you always run a certain risk of error.

– BERTRAND RUSSELL, FROM THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOGICAL ATOMISM (1918-19)