Word: meaningless
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...whether you agree with Russell or not, it is a constant joy to be sure you know what he means by what he is saying. Even in reading Russell's most complex and difficult treatises, one never suspects him of trying to avoid an issue by throwing up a meaningless verbal smokescreen that will hide the obvious banality or falsehood of his views on certain points. This is the result of that slow, painful climb toward greater intellectual clarity which has been the life-work of Russell and his colleagues, Moore and Wittgenstein, and which some contemporary writing is doing...
...figures contain a standard error of plus or minus 120,000 at the current level. Thus no one knows within six figures precisely what the total number of unemployed workers in the U.S. really is. Therefore, such figures as a 25,000 increase or decrease in unemployment are meaningless. And so are the tortured, hairline analyses made from them...
Toleration has no merit when it arises from mere unconcern. Toleration is a virtue only when it expresses the mutual respect of persons with diverse and strong convictions concerning the place of man in the universe. When one does not care, peace is as easy as it is meaningless. Perhaps this is the deeper question: does one care whether religious beliefs are true...
Some urged that the memorial be completely non-utilitarian, in spirit with the idealism of those honored; others felt that a memorial would be meaningless unless it had a practical use. Some suggested stone tablets engraved with the names of the dead, a simple statue of Leonidas, or a garden extending from the Yard to the river. The other faction pressed for a gymnasium, a new auditorium, or the establishment of a special scholarship fund. In the hope that some one project might be found which a majority of graduates would favor, the Associated Harvard Clubs appointed...
...with the most devout, but he has not practiced Roman Catholicism since his high school days ended his formal education. Though Hollywood seems a most unlikely place to have produced the author of Little Moon, he was raised there, played some bit parts as a child, shook off the "meaningless" glamour at 19 to go to Manhattan, "the Mecca of the artist...