Leonard Cohen Quotes

There are many trials in life which do not seem to come from unwisdom or folly; they are silver arrows shot from the bow of God, and fixed inextricably in the quivering heart - they are meant to be borne - they were not meant, like snow or water, to melt as soon as they strike; but the moment an ill can be patiently borne it is disarmed of its poison, though not of its pain.

Though God take the sunne out of the Heaven, yet we must have patience.

Giving thanks is that: making the canyon of pain into a megaphone to proclaim the ultimate goodness of God when Satan and all the world would sneer at us to recant.

I never question God. Sometimes I say, 'Why me? Why do I have such a hard life? Why do I have this disease? Why do I have siblings who died?' But then I think and say, 'Why not me?'

I do not murmur, even if my heart break.

The thing is, the only real sign of life is growth. And growth requires pain. So to choose life is to accept pain.

Life is not perfect. It never will be. You just have to make the very best of it, and you have to open your heart to what the world can show you; and sometimes it's terrifying, and sometimes it's incredibly beautiful, and I'll take both. Thanks.

A life like an intricately woven basket, frayed, worn, broken, unraveled, reworked, reknit from many of its original pieces... Life can survive in the constant shadow of illness, and even rise to moments of rampant joy, but the shadow remains, and one has to make space for it.

A man must take the fat with the lean.

Rain falls on everyone, lightning strikes some. What cannot be changed is best forgotten. God made the world, and He saw that it was good. Not fair. Not happy. Not perfect. Good.

Only for the sake of the hopeless ones have we been given hope.

As long as you live, there's always something waiting; and even if it's bad, and you know it's bad, what can you do? You can't stop living.

If you wake up / And the day feels broken / Just lean into the crack

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall

In sickness, with its attendant pain, patience is required. If the only perfect man who ever lived-even Jesus of Nazareth-was called upon to endure great suffering, how can we, who are less than perfect, expect to be free of such challenges?

Virtue tested: "Have I not survived hunger and thirst, suffering, and mockery for the sake of the truth which heaven has awakened in my heart?

Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man.

Faith means that a man should regard any disaster simply as a fate-determined blow which must be endured.

I fail sometimes, I succeed sometimes, so that's fair enough. It's a package deal. It comes with that package: failures and success.

Trouble comes to us all in this life: we set our hearts on things which it isn't God's will for us to have, and then we go sorrowing.

Sorrow comes in great waves...but rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us, it leaves us. And we know that if it is strong, we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain.

I think the game is to bear the unbearable with a giggle. With your heart breaking. And then do what you do.