Quote

I’ve seen the nations rise and fall. I’ve heard their stories, heard them all, but love’s the only engine of survival.

Leonard Cohen

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Leonard Cohen
Age: 82 †
Born: 1934
Born: September 21
Died: 2016
Died: November 7
Film Actor
Lyricist
Musician
Novelist
Pianist
Poet
Record Producer
Screenwriter
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Street Artist
Writer
Leonard Norman Cohen
Jikan
Love
Engines
Rise
Survival
Seen
Heard
Nations
Fall
Stories
Engine

More quotes by Leonard Cohen

Image
First of all nothing will happen and a little later nothing will happen again.
Leonard Cohen
Image
No one's ever done one of my songs badly. People say to me, God, so-and-so wrecked that song. Well, I'm unaware of it. Anybody doing one of my tunes has earned my gratitude, and I don't get that many covers where I have the luxury to choose.
Leonard Cohen
Image
Probably all cultures, certainly Western culture, always have been violent.
Leonard Cohen
Image
Love is a fire/It burns everyone/It disfigures everyone/It is the world's excuse for being ugly.
Leonard Cohen
Image
Everybody knows the dice are loaded.
Leonard Cohen
Image
I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others it's for others to use.
Leonard Cohen
Image
The cutting of the gem has to be finished before you can see whether it shines.
Leonard Cohen
Image
I'm writing all the time. And as the songs begin to coalesce, I'm not doing anything else but writing. I wish I were one of those people who wrote songs quickly. But I'm not. So it takes me a great deal of time to find out what the song is.
Leonard Cohen
Image
You have to keep cracking yourself open or you become a parody of yourself.
Leonard Cohen
Image
Take one step to the side and it's all absurd.
Leonard Cohen
Image
I can't run no more with that lawless crowd while the killers in high places say their prayers out loud. But they've summoned, they've summoned up a thundercloud and they're going to hear from me. 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
Image
You can do anything you want to [ in ashram] if you can find the time. It's a very rigorous day. It starts at 2:30 in the morning and often doesn't end until midnight, so if you can actually find a moment to have a drink or a smoke, you're quite welcome to, as long as it doesn't interfere with your capacity to follow the schedule.
Leonard Cohen
Image
Here is your cross, Your nails and your hill And here is your love, That lists where it will
Leonard Cohen
Image
Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free!!
Leonard Cohen
Image
Yes, you who must leave everything that you cannot control, It begins with your family, and soon it comes round to your soul. Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned: When you're not feeling holy your loneliness says that you've sinned.
Leonard Cohen
Image
The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold and it's overturned the order of the soul.
Leonard Cohen
Image
I'm never sure why I do anything, to tell you the truth.
Leonard Cohen
Image
In dreams the truth is learned that all good works are done in the absence of a caress.
Leonard Cohen
Image
I'm neither left or right. I'm just staying home tonight, getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
Leonard Cohen
Image
It's like a bear stumbling into a beehive or a honey cache: I'm stumbling right into it and getting stuck, and it's delicious and it's horrible and I'm in it and it's not very graceful and it's very awkward and it's very painful and yet there's something inevitable about it.
Leonard Cohen