Quotes from Leszek Kolakowski

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

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

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.

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

we really have no right to reproach God for having created the world. For Him it was the only possible way of escaping from the accursed void in which He found himself.

moral perfection is possible only on condition that infinite progress is possible, and infinite progress, in turn, is possible only if our existence is infinite.