Leszek Kołakowski Quotes
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.

-Leszek Kołakowski
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Religion is man's way of accepting life as an inevitable defeat. That it is not an inevitable defeat is a claim that cannot be defended in good faith. One can, of course, disperse one's life over the contingencies of every day, but even then it is only a ceaseless and desperate desire . . . Read more

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

-Leszek Kołakowski
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Curiosity, that is, the separate drive to explore the world disinterestedly, without being stimulated by danger or physiological dissatisfaction, is, according to students of evolution, rooted in specific morphological characteristics of our species and thus cannot be eliminated from . . . Read more

-Leszek Kołakowski
That being said, is there anything to say in support of utopian thinking? Everything, if the meaning of the word is somewhat restricted. If utopia means the highest set of values we want to defend and see implemented in social life, nothing prevents us from hanging on to all of them e . . . Read more

-Leszek Kołakowski
Is it not reasonable to suspect that if existence were pointless and the universe devoid of meaning, we would never have achieved not only the ability to imagine otherwise, but even the ability to entertain this very thought—to wit, that existence is pointless and the universe devoid of meaning.

-Leszek Kołakowski
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I was then a young and omniscient student (alas, I was soon to lose both these virtues).

-Leszek Kołakowski
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the freedom of individuals has – we may presume – an anthropological foundation. This is admittedly a doctrine which cannot be proved or disproved in the normal sense of the word ‘prove’. And yet our hope that freedom is not going to be ultimately destroyed by the joint pressu . . . Read more

-Leszek Kołakowski