All traditional logic habitually assumes that precise symbols are being employed. It is therefore not applicable to this terrestrial life, but only to an imagined celestial existence.
Russell, 1923, Vagueness
Russell on vagueness
Grice on Austin on Moore
I would begin by recalling that as a matter of historical fact Austin professed a strong admiration for G. E. Moore. “Some like Witters” he once said, “but Moore is my man.” [...] The question which now exercises me is why Moore’s stand on this matter should have specially aroused Austin’s respect, for what Moore said on this matter seems to me to be plainly inferior in quality, and indeed to be the kind of thing which Austin was more than capable of tearing to shreds had he encountered it in somebody else. [...] My explanation of part of Austin’s by no means wholly characteristic charity lies in my conjecture that Austin saw, or thought he saw, the right reply to these complaints and mistakenly assumed that Moore himself had also seen how to reply to them. [...] while Cook Wilson finds himself landed with bad answers, it seems to me that Moore has no answers at all, good or bad; and whether nonanswers are superior or inferior to bad answers seems to me a question hardly worth debating.
Grice, 1989, Studies in the Way of Words, pp. 381-384
Moore's 'so-and-so's
‘It all depends on what you mean by “the earth” and “exists” and “years”: if you mean so and so, and so and so, and so and so, then I do; but if you mean so and so, and so and so, and so and so, or so and so, and so and so, and so and so, or so and so, and so and so, and so and so, then I don’t, or at least I think it is extremely doubtful’.
Moore, 1925, A defense of common sense, p. 111
Russell on heroic remedies on philosophy
As all these results were obtained, not by any heroic method, but by patient detailed reasoning, I began to think it probable that philosophy had erred in adopting heroic remedies for intellectual difficulties, and that solutions were to be found merely by greater care and accuracy. This view I had come to hold more and more strongly as time went on, and it has led me to doubt whether philosophy, as a study distinct from science and possessed of a method of its own, is anything more than an unfortunate legacy from theology.
Russell, 2010, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, p. 128
Russell's confidence on logicism
But in spite of its [i.e. Principia Mathematica] shortcomings I think that no one who reads this book will dispute its main contention, namely, that from certain ideas and axioms of formal logic, by the help of the logic of relations, all pure mathematics can be deduced, without any new undefined idea or unproved propositions.
Russell, 2010, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, p. 128
Russell on the most important part of philosophy
The most important part [of philosophy], to my mind, consists in criticizing and clarifying notions which are apt to be regarded as fundamental and accepted uncritically.
Russell, 2010, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, p. 148
Russell on logically perfect language
A logically perfect language, if it could be constructed, would not only be intolerably prolix, but, as regards its vocabulary, would be very largely private to one speaker. That is to say, all the names that it would use would be private to that speaker and could not enter into the language of another speaker.
Russell, 2010, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, pp. 25-26