A sip of wine, a cigarette, And then it’s time to go. I tidied up the kitchenette; I tuned the old banjo. I’m wanted at the traffic-jam. They’re saving me a seat.
Leonard Cohen
Related People are not an interruption of our business. People are our business. A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes. It is hard to look up to a leader who keeps his ear to the ground. The most wasted day of all is that in which we have not laughed. The more intelligent a man is, the more originality he discovers in men. Ordinary people see no diff... The intelligence is proved not by ease of learning, but by understanding what we learn. Communication is something so simple and difficult that we can never put it in simple words. Like threads of silver seen through crystal beads Let love through good deeds show. How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it. In everyone's heart stirs a great homesickness. That is the supreme value of history. The study of it is the best guarantee against repeating it. Our wisdom comes usually from our experience, and our experience comes largely from our experience. One thing about the school of experience is that it will repeat the lesson if you flunk the first ti... To reprove small faults within due vehemence, is as absurd as if a man should take a great hammer to... Faith is like electricity. You can't see it, but you can see the light. Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it by the handle of anxiety, or by the handle of... Some families can trace their ancestors back three hundred years, but can't tell you where their chi... A recent survey was said to prove that the people we Americans most admire are our politicians and d... If a man defrauds you one time, he is a rascal; if he does it twice, you are a fool. Flattery looks like friendship, just like a wolf looks like a dog. Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admired when it ... Freedom also includes the right to mismanage your own affairs. Let your friends be the friends of your deliberate choice. The man who has strong opinions and always says what he thinks is courageous - and friendless. Friendship is love with understanding. So few people think. When we find one who really does, we call him a genius Your life can't go according to plan if you have no plan. Practicing the Golden Rule is not a sacrifice; it is an investment. Conversation is an exercise of the mind; gossip is merely an exercise of the tongue. An expert gossiper knows how much to leave out of a conversation To live so that you would not be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip, is to have li... Gossip is sometimes referred to as halitosis of the mind If you would attain greatness, think no little thoughts. We are born brave, trusting and greedy, and most of us remain greedy. People are changed, not by coercion or intimidation, but by example. Children are natural mimics; they act like their parents in spite of every effort to teach them good... The guilty catch themselves. Good habits are formed; bad habits we fall into. If happiness could be brought, few of us could pay the price. Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have. Happiness is in the heart, not in the circumstances. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. Hatred is a boomerang which is sure to hit you harder than the one at whom you throw it. Hate pollutes the mind. If we miraculously became the people we hate, how lovable we would find ourselves. To feel "fit as a fiddle" you must tone down your middle. Our health always seems much more valuable after we lose it. A patient going to a doctor for his first visit was asked, "And whom did you consult before coming t... "Oh," replied his patient, with no malice aforethought, "he told me to come and see you." It is impossible to make wisdom hereditary. Honesty is a question of right or wrong, not a matter of policy. It is a pleasure to give advice, humiliating to need it, normal to ignore it. It is almost impossible to smile on the outside without feeling better on the inside. Too many people confine their exercise to jumping to conclusions, running up bills, stretching the t... Imagination was given man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humor to console him for ... Humor - the perfect relationship of the parts to the whole. Our five senses are incomplete without the sixth - a sense of humor. "What made the deepest impression upon you?" inquired a friend one day of Lincoln, "when you stood i... It isn't easy for an idea to squeeze itself into a head filled with prejudice. Too many people run out of ideas long before they run out of words. Imagination is the pontoon bridge making way for the timid feet of reason. Practical observation commonly consists of collecting a few facts and loading them with guesses. Friendship is a living thing that lasts only as long as it is nourished with kindness, empathy and u... Having supplied them with names, omnipotence, justice, knowledge, Providence, - what are they? A good laugh is sunshine in a house. When you laugh, be sure to laugh at what people do and not at what people are. One look around us ought to show that all our arbitrary measures and bounds have been clamped on us ... No punishment of the unrighteous has ever been too severe in the eyes of the righteous. Why keep on enacting laws when we already have more than we can break. The best leader is the one who has the sense to surround himself with outstanding people and self-re... Advice is the only commodity on the market where the supply always exceeds the demand. Successful men follow the same advice they prescribe for others. You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea Old age may seem a long way off. But on the day it doesn't, it will be too late to do anything about... Age withers only the outside. Where ambition ends happiness begins. The best answer to answer to anger is silence. The size of a man is measured by the size of the thing that makes him angry. A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is talking about. People who know the least always argue the most. If you look for the positive things in life; you will find them. What we are doing at the moment is more that just one thing added to the rest; it is a memoir. Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes The human mind must believe in something, so why not let it believe what it does believe. He that boasts of his own knowledge proclaims his ignorance It is better to live richly than to die rich. On his examination paper a boy wrote, "A natural death is where you die by yourself without a doctor... Many things are worse than defeat,and compromise with evil is one of them. Desire for security keeps littleness little and threatens the great with smallness. We cannot be too earnest, too persistent, too determined, about living superior to the herd-instinct... A college education never hurt anybody who was willing to learn after he got it. Shortchange your education now and you may be short of change the rest of your life. Mistakes are a great educator when one is honest enough to admit them and willing to learn from them Catch your people doing something right and let them know you appreciate it. Create the kind of climate in your organization where personal growth is expected, recognized and re... Enthusiasm is very good lubrication for the mind. Enthusiasm is that kindling spark which marks the difference between the leaders in every activity a... There are many roads to hate, but envy is the shortest of them all. The only person worth envying is he person who doesn't envy.
More Leonard Cohen
When you stop thinking about yourself all the time, a certain sense of repose overtakes you. LEONARD COHEN At a certain point, if you still have your marbles and are not faced with serious financial challeng... LEONARD COHEN This is the most challenging activity that humans get into, which is love. You know, where we have t... LEONARD COHEN If I knew where the good songs came from, I'd go there more often. LEONARD COHEN And I had not much of a voice. I didn't play that great guitar either. LEONARD COHEN I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That's what sitting on your ass d... LEONARD COHEN My two great heroes are W. B. Yeats and Federico García Lorca. LEONARD COHEN Success is survival. LEONARD COHEN We're always experiencing joy or sadness. But there are lots of people who've closed down. A... LEONARD COHEN We used to play music for fun. Much more than now. Now nobody picks up a guitar unless they're p... LEONARD COHEN When things get really bad, just raise your glass and stamp your feet and do a little jig. That'... LEONARD COHEN There were times that I thought I was good looking. LEONARD COHEN I don't really understand that process called reincarnation but if there is such a thing I'd... LEONARD COHEN I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to ... LEONARD COHEN Act the way you'd like to be and soon you'll be the way you act. LEONARD COHEN There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. LEONARD COHEN We're in a world where there's famine and hunger and people are dodging bullets and having t... LEONARD COHEN Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everythi... LEONARD COHEN It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It is hard to show a pimple LEONARD COHEN Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in ever... LEONARD COHEN There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. LEONARD COHEN Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language h... LEONARD COHEN I know that there is an eye that watches all of us. There is a judgment that weighs everything we do... LEONARD COHEN What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person ... LEONARD COHEN There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. LEONARD COHEN I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That's what sitting on your ass does ... LEONARD COHEN I have nothing against the Queen of England. Even in my heart I never resented her for not being Jac... LEONARD COHEN The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold and it's overturned the order of the soul... LEONARD COHEN The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world. LEONARD COHEN The ages of seven to eleven is a huge chunk of life, full of dulling and forgetting. It is fabled th... LEONARD COHEN He lay beside her, an insomniac with visions of vastness. He thought of desert stretches so huge no ... LEONARD COHEN Raise a million filters and the rain will not be clean, until the longing for it be refined in deep ... LEONARD COHEN What is most original in a man's nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are ... LEONARD COHEN The term clinical depression finds its way into too many conversations these days. One has a sense t... LEONARD COHEN In dreams the truth is learned that all good works are done in the absence of a caress. LEONARD COHEN To every people the land is given on condition. Perceived or not, there is a Covenant, beyond the co... LEONARD COHEN The term clinical depression finds its way into too many conversations these days. One has a sense ... LEONARD COHEN Well, for one thing, in the tradition of Zen that I've practiced, there is no prayerful worship ... LEONARD COHEN Most of the time one is discouraged by the work, but now and again by some grace something stands ou... LEONARD COHEN I had the title poet, and maybe I was one for a while. Also, the title singer was kindly accorded me... LEONARD COHEN Let judges secretly despair of justice: their verdicts will be more acute. Let generals secretly des... LEONARD COHEN Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when t... LEONARD COHEN Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. LEONARD COHEN I like life on the road. It's a lot easier than civilian life. You kind of feel like you're ... LEONARD COHEN Music is the emotional life of most people. LEONARD COHEN This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled. But there are moments ... LEONARD COHEN A woman watches her body uneasily, as though it were an unreliable ally in the battle for love. LEONARD COHEN I never had the sense that there was an end: that there was a retirement or that there was a jackpot... LEONARD COHEN I never really liked poetry readings; I liked to read poetry by myself, but I liked singing, chantin... LEONARD COHEN My mind was always very cluttered, so I took great pains to simplify my environment, because if my e... LEONARD COHEN Journalists, especially English journalists, were very cruel to me. They said I only knew three chor... LEONARD COHEN I think the term poet is a very exalted term and should be applied to a man at the end of his work. ... LEONARD COHEN I can make a couple of good sandwiches: tuna salad and chopped egg salad. And Greek bean soup. I was... LEONARD COHEN I think that Bob Dylan knows this more than all of us: you don't write the songs anyhow. So if y... LEONARD COHEN I speak of a clinical depression that is the background of your entire life, a background of anguish... LEONARD COHEN I read with some amusement my reputation as a ladies' man. My friends are amused by that, too, b... LEONARD COHEN ... i didn't fall in love of course it's never up to you but she was walking back and fort... LEONARD COHEN There are writers who are great visionaries, who can depict huge movements - things like that. They&... LEONARD COHEN Any startling piece of work has a subversive element in it, a delicious element often. Subversion is... LEONARD COHEN I can work on a verse for a very long time before realising it's not any good and then, and only... LEONARD COHEN What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person ... LEONARD COHEN Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when ... LEONARD COHEN Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when... LEONARD COHEN Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as a secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when... LEONARD COHEN Any startling piece of work has a subversive element in it, a delicious element often. Subversion is... LEONARD COHEN I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,
he said to me, "You must not ask for so much."
And a pr... LEONARD COHEN As we make our way toward the finish line that some of us have already crossed, I never thought I... LEONARD COHEN As I approach the end of my life, I have even less and less interest in examining what have got to b... LEONARD COHEN I had girlfriends who really irritated me by their devotion to the Beatles. I didn't begrudge th... LEONARD COHEN If only my genitals didn't float When I relaxed in the bath And we both looked down and we... LEONARD COHEN There are some people who come to me for some illumination on their problems. I guess they feel I... LEONARD COHEN And I'll dance with you in Vienna, I'll be wearing a river's disguise. The hyacinth wild o... LEONARD COHEN One of the reasons I'm on tour is to meet people. I consider it a reconnaissance. You know, I co... LEONARD COHEN The basic function of popular music is to create an environment for courting, lovemaking, and doing ... LEONARD COHEN You go to Heaven once you've been to Hell LEONARD COHEN Please make me empty, if I'm empty then I can receive, if I can receive it means it comes from somew... LEONARD COHEN My reputation as a ladies' man was a joke that caused me to laugh bitterly through the ten thousand ... LEONARD COHEN The Maestro says it's Mozart but it sounds like bubble gum when you're waiting for the miracle to co... LEONARD COHEN You can keep the body as well-oiled and receptive as possible, but whether you're actually going... LEONARD COHEN I have a deep tribal sense. I grew up in a synagogue that my ancestors built. I sat in the third row... LEONARD COHEN Then I start to struggle With a feeble song Which will overcome me Many miles from ho... LEONARD COHEN Show me slowly what I only know the limits of Dance me to the end of love LEONARD COHEN I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy, golde... LEONARD COHEN I don't have any sense or urgency about any of my writing, actually. I don't think mankind w... LEONARD COHEN Everybody knows that the dice are loaded Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed Everyb... LEONARD COHEN He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have ... LEONARD COHEN so much of the world is plunged in darkness and chaos... So ring the bells that still can... LEONARD COHEN My page was too white My ink was too thin The day wouldn't write What the night penci... LEONARD COHEN Ett ärr är vad som uppstår när ordet blir kött. LEONARD COHEN BREAVMAN KNOWS a girl named Shell whose ears were pierced so she could wear the long filigree earrin... LEONARD COHEN A rat is more alive than a turtle. A turtle is slow, cold, mechanical, nearly a toy, a shell wi... LEONARD COHEN Sjeća se užasnih šutnji i plača koji nije mogao razumjeti. Ništa nije mogao učiniti, a najmanj... LEONARD COHEN Comic books, movies, radio programmes centered their entertainment around the fact of torture. With ... LEONARD COHEN He never described himself as a poet or his work as poetry. The fact that the lines do not come to t... LEONARD COHEN I am running through a snowfall which is her thighs, he dramatized in purple. Her thighs are filling... LEONARD COHEN Coroner's inquest: death by drowning. And he hasn't been to the sea-shore in ten years. LEONARD COHEN He hated the men floating in sleep in the big stone houses. Because their lives were ordered and the... LEONARD COHEN Dear Hitler Take away the torches I'm not guilty I had to have this LEONARD COHEN I'm afraid to live any place but in expectation. I'm no life-risk. LEONARD COHEN I must go now." "Stay up the night with me! We'll go to the fish market. There are great noble ... LEONARD COHEN Garages, barns and attics are always older than the buildings to which they are attached. LEONARD COHEN It doesn't matter how anything happens. LEONARD COHEN Your body will never be familiar. LEONARD COHEN She was made of flesh and eyelashes. LEONARD COHEN Anything I tell you is an alibi for something else." Then let's be quiet together. LEONARD COHEN He knew that hair couldn't feel; he kissed her hair. LEONARD COHEN Deprivation is the mother of poetry. LEONARD COHEN I'm planning a catastrophe. LEONARD COHEN As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves against wonder. LEONARD COHEN I loved you when you opened like a lily to the heat; you see I’m just another snowman standing in ... LEONARD COHEN Act the way you'd like to be and soon you'll be the way you act. LEONARD COHEN Well I've seen your flag on the marble arch and love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a ... LEONARD COHEN I taught him how to dress. He taught me how to live forever. LEONARD COHEN I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain... LEONARD COHEN This civil action is another case of a tragedy that has become all too familiar in the music industr... LEONARD COHEN All the Men will be sailors then, untill the sea shall free them. LEONARD COHEN Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That'... LEONARD COHEN Seven to eleven is a huge chunk of life, full of dulling and forgetting. It is fabled that we slowly... LEONARD COHEN It looks like freedom but it feels like death, it's something in between I guess. It's closing time. LEONARD COHEN Reality is one of the possibilities I cannot afford to ignore LEONARD COHEN I always considered myself a minor writer. My province is small, and I try to explore it very, very ... LEONARD COHEN How bitter were the Prozac pills of the last few hundred mornings LEONARD COHEN A kite is a victim you are sure of. You love it because it pulls gentle enough to call you... LEONARD COHEN I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to cal... LEONARD COHEN I heard of a man who says words so beautifully that if he only speaks their name wome... LEONARD COHEN The flowers that I left in the ground, that I did not gather for you, today I bring them... LEONARD COHEN Don't call yourself a secret unless you mean to keep it. LEONARD COHEN I will starve till prophets find me, I will bleed till angels bind me, Still I sing till c... LEONARD COHEN I never had huge amounts of money when I was young. I had huge amounts of fame, and I always had the... LEONARD COHEN Out of the thousands who are known or who want to be known as poets, maybe one or two are genuine an... LEONARD COHEN I always felt I was scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to get a song together. LEONARD COHEN I continually blacken pages and scribble away, so I always have a number of songs that are half-fini... LEONARD COHEN Everybody knows that the dice are loaded Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed Everyb... LEONARD COHEN The older I get, the surer I am that I'm not running the show. LEONARD COHEN As a young man, Yeats spoke to me in a way I could understand. Shakespeare I couldn't understand... LEONARD COHEN Torah values are the ones that inform my life. LEONARD COHEN Be With Me In The Phases Of My Work Because My Brain Feels Like It Has Been Whipped And I Yearn To M... LEONARD COHEN Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when y... LEONARD COHEN I was 15 when I first became deeply touched by the rhythm and structure of words. LEONARD COHEN My sense of proprietorship has been so weak that actually I didn't pay attention and I lost the ... LEONARD COHEN I like being the underdog so they don't expect what's going to happen. It pushes me to work ... KAWHI LEONARD There are cities that get by on their good looks, offer climate and scenery, views of mountains or o... ELMORE LEONARD The convergence of the Rhone and Saone. Paul Bocuse. The birthplace of cinema. Chateauneuf-du-Pape j... LEONARD SLATKIN I'm not a builder of buildings, I'm a builder of collections. LEONARD LAUDER That which is alike will be called same. That which is not same is different. LEONARD BLOOMFIELD Professionally, I was at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and did lots of things there, and then I won... LYDIA LEONARD Is the universe 'elegant,' as Brian Greene tells us? Not as far as I can tell, not the usual... LEONARD SUSSKIND During one of my early seminars, there were a bunch of seminar junkies there. LEONARD ORR Obviously, I like guys that can defend other positions. Draymond Green is doing a great job with Gol... KAWHI LEONARD To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time. LEONARD BERNSTEIN The book tour has been really interesting and very gratifying. I have not book toured before. I'... LEONARD NIMOY Non-human primates spend hours a day grooming each other. And with humans, touching is also importan... LEONARD MLODINOW My folks came to U.S. as immigrants, aliens, and became citizens. I was born in Boston, a citizen, w... LEONARD NIMOY When judging a product, we rarely have exhaustive scientific data to go by. As a result, if we are t... LEONARD MLODINOW If you kneel before God, you will stand before men. LEONARD RAVENHILL Psychopaths... people who know the differences between right and wrong, but don't give a shit. That'... ELMORE LEONARD Live Long and Prosper LEONARD NIMOY If I meet God, I hope she's female. I'm touched by the power of women. I'm married to a feminist. An... LEONARD NIMOY I'm only human, and I have no doubt Spock will outlive me by many years. I can only hope that, once ... LEONARD NIMOY I AM CONVINCED I am convinced That if all mankind Could only gather together LEONARD NIMOY The miracle is this - the more we share, the more we have. LEONARD NIMOY Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end. LEONARD NIMOY It's my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing. ELMORE LEONARD My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all ... ELMORE LEONARD Music, because of its specific and far-reaching metaphorical powers, can name the unnamable and comm... LEONARD BERNSTEIN The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies... LEONARD BERNSTEIN The ultimate creative capacity of the brain may be, for all practical purposes, infinite. GEORGE LEONARD Men give advice; God gives guidance. LEONARD RAVENHILL In terms of the game theory, we might say the universe is so constituted as to maximize play. The be... GEORGE LEONARD Beware of programmers who carry screwdrivers. LEONARD BRANDWEIN Competition is the spice of sports; but if you make spice the whole meal you'll be sick. GEORGE LEONARD “The church that is man-managed instead of God-governed is doomed to failure. A ministry that... LEONARD RAVENHILL It takes as much imagination to create debt as to create income. LEONARD ORR While we often huddle in groups of like-minded people, those with faith blaze a trail that threatens... LEONARD RAVENHILL The growth of affluence, the growth of education, has led to a shortage of morons. LEONARD NEAL The simplest single-celled organism oscillates to a number of different frequencies, at the atomic, ... GEORGE LEONARD History tells us more than we want to know about what is wrong with man, and we can hardly turn a pa... GEORGE LEONARD If eighty percent of your sales come from twenty percent of all of your items, just carry those twen... STEW LEONARD The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting. GLORIA LEONARD Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors. LEONARD BERNSTEIN The second fiddle. I can get plenty of first violinists, but to find someone who can play the second... LEONARD BERNSTEIN I think it is time we learned the lesson of our century: that the progress of the human spirit must ... LEONARD BERNSTEIN A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, a... LEONARD BERNSTEIN When the thunder rumbles, Now the age of gold is dead. When the dreams we've clung to Tryin... LEONARD BERNSTEIN Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of th... LEONARD BERNSTEIN A customer who complains is my best friend. STEW LEONARD Rule number one: The customer is always right. Rule number two: If the customer is wrong, see rule n... STEVE LEONARD I know nothing about sex, because I was always married. GLORIA LEONARD Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of th... LEONARD BERNSTEIN Clarity affords focus. THOMAS LEONARD Touch seems to be such an important tool for enhancing social cooperation and affiliation that we ha... LEONARD MLODINOW My wife and I are affiliated with a temple here in Los Angeles. We feel very close to the congregati... LEONARD NIMOY A lot of my research time is spent daydreaming - telling an imaginary admiring audience of laymen ho... LEONARD SUSSKIND It was a great feeling to be named an All-Star starter, to know that my hard work is paying off and ... KAWHI LEONARD Well, first of all the Dominion Bureau of Statistics made a survey in the spring of 1970, which show... LEONARD WOODCOCK If tomorrow all of America were to become paternalistic, we would beat the Japanese every day of the... LEONARD LAUDER It seems hopelessly improbable that any particular rules accidentally led to the miracle of intellig... LEONARD SUSSKIND 'Subliminal' is about how we misinterpret our behavior because we're unaware of what our... LEONARD MLODINOW Boston was a great city to grow up in, and it probably still is. We were surrounded by two very impo... LEONARD NIMOY Our success in this matter is important to all Americans. Whether you are in the forest land busines... LEONARD BOSWELL