“In 1903 there appeared Problems of Idealism, a collection of essays many of whose authors had recently been Marxists, but which condemned Marxism and materialism for their moral nihilism, contempt of personality, determinism, and fanatical pursuit of social values regardless of the individuals who made up society; they also attacked Marxism for its uncritical worship of progress and sacrifice of the present to the future. (pp. 420-1)”
“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