Leonard Cohen Quotes

He who, by causing pain to others, wishes to obtain pleasure for himself, he, entangled in the bonds of hatred, will never be free from hatred.

Once you're on the wheel, you don't come off.

Nothing brings more pain than too much pleasure; nothing more bondage than too much liberty.

Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure.

You know the pain is part of the whole thing. And it isn’t that you can say afterwards the pleasure was greater than the pain and that’s why you would do it again. That has nothing to do with it. You can’t measure it, because the pain comes after and it lasts longer. So the question really is, Why doesn’t that pain make you say, I won’t do it again? When the pain is so bad that you have to say that, but you don’t.

Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.

Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey his master's commands when, in fact, he is obliged to. Most slaves of habit suffer from this delusion and so do some writers, enslaved by an all too personal style.

Unhappy is the soul enslaved by the love of anything that is mortal.

Every junkie, he thought, is a recording.

It was as if pain were a room he had entered and the door had been locked behind him.

We know there's going to be nothing but pain, but we go back again and again.

There's a fine line between pleasure and pain. Love me like a ball and chain.

The chain of habit coils itself around the heart like a serpent, to gnaw and stifle it.

We are chained to that which we do not forgive

This is what it means to be a slave; to be abused and bear it; compelled by violence to suffer wrong.

When you're comfortable and secure, it's not enough. The mind doesn't stop there because it has to continue to focus itself as this body, so it moves to pleasure. And pleasure really is a non-existent thing. When we're experiencing pleasure, we're trying to hold onto it as it leaves, so it really isn't pleasure. Pleasure is pain because we're grasping.

Why does a man who is truly in love insist that this relationship must continue and be "lifelong"? Because life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic. Who would want to wake up halfway through an operation?

Habit is a second nature, and what was at first pleasure, is next necessity.

To be free, first of all, is to be free from wrong views that are the foundation of all kinds of suffering and fear and violence.

It was the peculiar artifice of Habit not to suffer her power to be felt at first. Those whom she led, she had the address of appearing only to attend, but was continually doubling her chains upon her companions; which were so slender in themselves, and so silently fastened, that while the attention was engaged by other objects, they were not easily perceived. Each link grew tighter as it had been longer worn; and when by continual additions they became so heavy as to be felt, they were very frequently too strong to be broken.

I'll be a good boy, please make me well. I promise you anything, get me out of this hell. Cold turkey has got me on the run.

There is so much to life; my heart breaks watching someone held captive by addiction.

Dancing can be addictive if you like it.