Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

Leonard Cohen

84 quotes

“Here I stand, I'm your man.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My friends are gone and My hair is grey. I ache in the places where I used to play. And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on. I'm just paying my rent everyday In the Tower Of Song.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can say that I've grown bitter but of this you can be sure. The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor. And there's a mighty Judgement coming but I may be wrong…”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I see you standing on the other side. I don't know how the river got so wide. I loved you, baby, way back when. And all the bridges are burning that We might have crossed and I feel so close to everything that we've lost. We'll never, we'll never have to lose it again.Now I bid You farewell, I don't when I'll be back. They're moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track. But you'll be hearing from me, baby, long after I'm gone. I'll be speaking to you sweetly From a window in the Tower Of Song”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've seen the future, brother: it is murder.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Waiting for the miracle There's nothing left to do. I haven't been this happy since the end of World War II.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you're squeezed for information, that's when you've got to play it dumb: You just say you're out there waiting for the miracle to come.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We're drinking and we're dancing but there's nothing really happening. The place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every heart to love will come But like a refugee.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's coming through a hole in the air From those nights in Tiananmen Square It's coming from the feel That it ain't exactly real Or it's real, but it ain't exactly there From the war against disorder From the sirens night and day From the fires of the homeless From the ashes of the gay Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“* It's coming to America first The cradle of the best and of the worst It's here they got the range And the machinery for change And it's here they got the spiritual thirst It's here the family's broken And it's here the lonely say That the heart has got to open In a fundamental way Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean I love the country but I can't stand the scene And I'm neither left or right I'm just staying home tonight Getting lost in that hopeless little screen But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags that time cannot decay, I’m junk but I’m still holding up this little wild bouquet: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I smile when I'm angry, I cheat and I lie. I do what I have to do to get by. But I know what is wrong and I know what is right, and I'd die for the truth in my secret life.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And here you are hurried, And here you are gone; And here is the love, That it's all built upon.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here is your cross, Your nails and your hill; And here is your love, That lists where it will”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“May everyone live, And may everyone die. Hello, my love, And my love, Goodbye.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The light came through the window, Straight from the sun above, And so inside my little room There plunged the rays of Love.In streams of light I clearly saw The dust you seldom see, Out of which the Nameless makes A Name for one like me.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All busy in the sunlight The flecks did float and dance, And I was tumbled up with them In formless circumstance.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'll try to say a little more: Love went on and on Until it reached an open door — Then Love Itself Love Itself was gone.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You whisper, "You have loved enough, Now let me be the Lover.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I swept the marble chambers, But you sent me down below. You kept me from believing Until you let me know: That I am not the one who loves — It's love that chooses me. When hatred with his package comes, You forbid delivery.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame You want it darker We kill the flame Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name Vilified, crucified, in the human frame A million candles burning for the help that never came You want it darkerHineni, hineni I'm ready, my Lord”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They're lining up the prisoners And the guards are taking aim I struggled with some demons They were middle-class and tame I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh. It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It is hard to show a pimple.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I fought against the bottle but I had to do it drunk”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: That Don't Make It Junk", Ten New Songs (2001)
“So the great affair is over but whoever would have guessed it would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed. It's like our visit to the moon or to that other star I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Death of a Ladies' Man" (1977)
“And sometimes when the night is slow The wretched and the meek We gather up our hearts and go A Thousand Kisses Deep.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Thousand Kisses Deep" (2001)
“The candles burned The moon went down The polished hill The milky town Transparent, weightless, luminous Uncovering the two of us On that fundamental ground Where love's unwilled, unleashed, unbound And half the perfect world is found.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Half the Perfect World" (2006) (co-written with Anjani)
“And clenching your fist for the ones like us who are oppressed by the figures of beauty, you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind, we are ugly but we have the music.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Beautiful Losers (1966)
“I am so often accused of gloominess and melancholy. And I think I'm probably the most cheerful man around. I don't consider myself a pessimist at all. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel completely soaked to the skin. … I think those descriptions of me are quite inappropriate to the gravity of the predicament that faces us all. I've always been free from hope. It's never been one of my great solaces. I feel that more and more we're invited to make ourselves strong and cheerful. .... I think that it was Ben Jonson who said, I have studied all the theologies and all the philosophies, but cheerfulness keeps breaking through.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "The Joking Troubadour of Gloom" in The Daily Telegraph (26 April 1993)
“I come from a country where we do not have the same struggles as you have. I respect your struggles. And it may surprise you, but I respect both sides of this struggle. It seems to be that in Europe there needs to be a left foot and a right foot to move forward. I wish that both feet move forward and the body moves towards its proper destiny. This is an intense country; the people are heroic, the spirit is independent. It is a difficult country to govern, it needs a strong government and a strong union. … I would like to say to you, to the leaders of the left, and the leaders of the right, I sing... I sing for everyone. My song has no flag, my song has no party. And I say the prayer, that we said in our synagogue, I say it for the leader of your union and the leader of your party. May the Lord put a spirit, a wisdom and understanding into the hearts of your leaders and into the hearts of all their counsellors.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have no program, I have no five-year plan. … It doesn’t mean that you shouldn't have one! I just move from hotel to hotel, and from bar to bar, and by the grace of the One above occasionally a song comes, and I remember sitting at this particularly obnoxious Polynesian restaurant where they served a kind of coconut drink that was particularly lethal and sinister which contained no alcohol but a certain chemical that demoralized you entirely. And I remember writing on one of their very badly designed napkins, "I remember you well at the Chelsea Hotel..." so I dedicate this song to one of the great singers, Janis Joplin.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source