Leszek Kolakowski Quotes

We learn history not in order to know how to behave or how to succeed, but to know who we are.

We were happy a hundred years ago. We knew that there were exploiters and exploited, wealthy and poor, and we had a perfect idea of how to get rid of injustice; we would expropriate the owners and turn the wealth over to the common good. We expropriated the owners and we created one of the most monstrous and oppressive social systems in world history. And we keep repeating that in principle everything was all right, only some unfortunate accidents slipped in and slightly spoiled the good idea. Now let us start afresh.

No victory is irreversible, no defeat is definitive. That is what makes life worth living.

For any given doctrine that one wants to believe, there is never a shortage of arguments by which to support it.

A modern philosopher who has never once suspected himself of being a charlatan must be such a shallow mind that his work is probably not worth reading.