“It would be silly, of course, to be either 'for' or 'against' modernity tout court, not only because it is pointless to try to stop the development of technology, science, and economic rationality, but because both modernity and antimodernity may be expressed in barbarous and antihuman terms.”
Leszek Kołakowski
More by Leszek Kołakowski

“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

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

Leszek Kołakowski

“...shall we say that the difference between a vegetarian and a cannibal is just a matter of taste?”

Leszek Kołakowski

“Communism was not the crazy fantasy of a few fanatics, nor the result of human stupidity and baseness; it was a real, very real part of the history of the twentieth century, and we cannot understand t...”

Leszek Kołakowski

“When I collect my experiences, I notice that fascist is a person who holds one of the following beliefs (by way of example): 1) That people should wash themselves, rather than go dirty; 2) that freedo...”

Leszek Kołakowski