Leonard Cohen Quotes

I have found little that is 'good' about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think.

Everyone is born sincere and die deceivers.

In all sincere speech there is power, not necessarily great power, but as much as the speaker is capable of.

The only thing you can really say in a poem is what you really, really deeply believe.

That's the thing about acting - you can't fake it.

Whatever else has been said about me personally is unimportant. When I sing, I believe. I'm honest.

Feeling has as much to say as the words do. You can have the greatest words in the world and if they're not believable, they don't strike a chord and they're not said convincingly, it's not a great song.

The ideas I'm working with are ideas I'm committed to. I don't know how to soft-shoe them. I don't know how to make them more palpable. I just never knew how to be one of those girls. I wish I knew how to be that sometimes, but I don't know how to be that way.

He has not a single grain of conviction in him except in the abstract.

An orator is a man who says what he thinks and feels what he says.

I would say three-quarters of what I do depends on the sincerity of it. You can croak, but if you croak good, they'll still listen.

Enthusiasm is always an interesting spectacle. When it expresses itself with an honest and artless eloquence, it is difficult to listen to it and not, in some degree, to catch the flame.

Acting means nothing unless it's truth. And honesty.

Say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks the determination with which you believe it.

I grew up with the idealistic notion that writing and literature were noble causes. I had no inkling, no sense of what I would eventually encounter in terms of people who weren't being sincere. I'm not saying that it happens always or a lot, but it happens enough that sometimes it makes me feel a little queasy.

Tupac was just so passionate about what he believes in and not afraid to say anything.

If you stand for something, you will always find some people for you and some people against you. If you stand for nothing, you will find nobody against you, and nobody for you.

As a kid, I was searching for my tribe of other people who saw through the matrix. Even as a kid I could never buy into the status quo. I just thought it was a joke; I couldn't believe other people weren't laughing at it.

A giant as we hoped, in truth, a dwarf; A barrel of slop that shines on Lethe's wharf', Which at first seemed a vessel with sweet wine For thirsty lips. So down the swift decline You went through sloven spirit, craven heart And cynic indolence. And here the art Of molding clay has caught you for the nonce And made your shame our shame ~ Your head in bronze!

Truth is not so threadbare as speech, because fewer people can make use of it.

It is a fine thing to see people in hot earnest about anything.

I love to see when people are real passionate about what they feel and what they say.

One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up.

In face of this modern nihilism, Christians are often lacking in courage. We tend to give the impression that we will hold on to the outward forms whatever happens, even if God really is not there. But the opposite ought to be true of us, so that people can see that we demand the truth of what is there and that we are not dealing merely with platitudes. In other words, it should be understood that we take this question of truth and personality so seriously that if God were not there we would be among the first of those who had the courage to step out of the queue.

I did not hate God or Christ, but merely the God and Christ of the people whom I hated.