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The actual quote attributed to Russell is, "Everything is vague to a degree you do not realise till you have tried to make it precise."

 

Bill Bailey

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I once met a pompous ass of a believer who had this religious-sense theory in an exaggerated degree. It is not at all my custom to obtrude the question of religion in conversation, but somebody maliciously tried to draw the man into debate about God with me. He would say nothing but, with comic solemnity: "I know there is a God." He would not explain further, but his meaning was clear. He felt it. He sensed it. And there is but one possible form in which he could have given precise expression to his actual experience. He was visibly annoyed, but still silent, when I put it. It is: "I have a strong conviction that God exists."

 

Joseph McCabe

 

Though widely attributed in these forms, they are apparently paraphrased from the quote "the world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it" from Conversations with Casals (1957), listed above in the "1950s" section.

 

Albert Einstein

 

We are thus led to a somewhat vague distinction between what we may call "hard" data and "soft" data. This distinction is a matter of degree, and must not be pressed; but if not taken too seriously it may help to make the situation clear. I mean by "hard" data those which resist the solvent influence of critical reflection, and by " soft " data those which, under the operation of this process, become to our minds more or less doubtful.

 

Bertrand Russell

 

"Amazing. You're here, but you can't do a simple thing like raising light, or do I mean lazing right? Whichever. You can't. Why not?"
"No one ever showed me how," I said.
He swayed about, looking solemn. "I quote," he said. "I'm very well read in the literature of several worlds, you know, and I quote. What do they teach them in these schools?"

 

Diana Wynne Jones

 

"Amazing. You're here, but you can't do a simple thing like raising light, or do I mean lazing right? Whichever. You can't. Why not?"
"No one ever showed me how," I said.
He swayed about, looking solemn. "I quote," he said. "I'm very well read in the literature of several worlds, you know, and I quote. What do they teach them in these schools?"

 

Diana Wynne Jones