Top 250 Leonard Cohen Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Life Quotes, Music Quotes, Famous Quotes, Sunday Inspirational Quotes, Important Quotes

2. “You lose your grip, and then you slip into the Masterpiece.”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Creativity Quotes, Quotes About Writing, Art Quotes

3. “Pay attention to the cracks, because that’s where the light gets in.”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Artist Quotes

4. “If you don’t become the ocean, you’ll be seasick every day.”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Quotes About Ocean

5. “Everybody knows that the dice are loaded, Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed, Everybody knows that the war is over, Everybody knows the good guys lost.”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Depressing Quotes, Sad Quotes, Quotes About War

6. “Do not be a magician – be magic!”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Magic Quotes

7. “Act the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you act.”

— Leonard Cohen

8. “How can I begin anything new with all of yesterday in me?”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Existentialism Quotes

9. “I don’t consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin.”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Quotes About Thinking, Quotes About Reality, Rain Quotes

10. “We are so lightly here. It is in love that we are made. In love we disappear.”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Love Life Quotes, Romantic Quotes, Unconditional Love Quotes, Book Quotes About Love, Short Love Quotes for Her

11. “We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky.”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Universe Quotes, Quotes About Stars, Sky Quotes

12. “Love is the only engine of survival.”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Love Life Quotes, Short Love Quotes for Her

13. “I have tried in my way to be free.”

— Leonard Cohen

14. “In the broken places, the light shines through.”

— Leonard Cohen

15. “I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair, with a love so vast and shattered it will reach you everywhere.”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Depression Quotes, Deep Love Quotes, Heartbreak Quotes, Love Hurts Quotes, Grief Quotes

16. “And here you are hurried, And here you are gone; And here is the love, That it’s all built upon.”

— Leonard Cohen

17. “You go your way I’ll go your way too.”

— Leonard Cohen

18. “I wish I could say everything in one word. I hate all the things that can happen between the beginning of a sentence and the end.”

— Leonard Cohen

19. “Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don’t really care for music, do you? It goes like this the fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah.”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Culture Quotes, Quotes About Songs

20. “Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin Dance me through the panic ’til I’m gathered safely in Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove Dance me to the end of love.”

— Leonard Cohen

21. “Music is the emotional life of most people.”

— Leonard Cohen

22. “You who wish to conquer pain, you must learn what makes one kind.”

— Leonard Cohen

23. “May you be surrounded by friends and family, and if this is not your lot, may the blessings find you in your solitude.”

— Leonard Cohen

24. “Never make a decision when you need to pee.”

— Leonard Cohen

25. “First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

26. “I speak of a clinical depression that is the background of your entire life, a background of anguish and anxiety, a sense that nothing goes well, that pleasure is unavailable and all your strategies collapse.”

— Leonard Cohen

27. “We are ugly but we have the music.”

— Leonard Cohen

28. “It’s not a cry you can hear at night. It’s not somebody who has seen the light. It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.”

— Leonard Cohen

29. “May everyone live, And may everyone die. Hello, my love, And my love, Goodbye.”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Goodbye Quotes

30. “Maybe there’s a god above but the only thing I learned from love was how to shoot at somebody who outdrew you.”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Broken Heart Quotes

31. “Don’t dwell on what has passed away or what is yet to be.”

— Leonard Cohen

32. “And sometimes when the night is slow The wretched and the meek We gather up our hearts and go A Thousand Kisses Deep.”

— Leonard Cohen

33. “Follow me, the wise man said, but he walked behind.”

— Leonard Cohen

34. “It’s the notion that there is no perfection – that there is a broken world and we live with broken hearts and broken lives but still there is no alibi for anything. On the contrary, you have to stand up and say hallelujah under those circumstances.”

— Leonard Cohen

Featured in: Perfection Quotes

35. “I don’t trust my inner feelings, inner feelings come and go.”

— Leonard Cohen

36. “Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free!!”

— Leonard Cohen

37. “You’ve got a deadline. Well, I do, too: death.”

— Leonard Cohen

38. “Ring the bells that still can ring.”

— Leonard Cohen

39. “It doesn’t matter what you do because it’s going to happen anyway.”

— Leonard Cohen

40. “Love is not a victory march.”

— Leonard Cohen

41. “Take one step to the side and it’s all absurd.”

— Leonard Cohen

42. “The older I get, the surer I am that I’m not running the show.”

— Leonard Cohen

43. “Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”

— Leonard Cohen

44. “I don’t know which side is anybody on any more. I don’t really care. There is a moment when we have to transcend the side we’re on and understand that we are creatures of a higher order.”

— Leonard Cohen

45. “If you want a lover I’ll do anything you ask. If you want a different kind of love I’ll wear a mask. If you want to strike me down in anger here I stand. If you want a partner in life take my hand. I’m your man.”

— Leonard Cohen

46. “You win a while, and then it’s done – Your little winning streak.”

— Leonard Cohen

47. “I’ve seen the future and it’s murder.”

— Leonard Cohen

48. “All men will be sailors then Until the sea shall free them.”

— Leonard Cohen

49. “And what can I tell you, my brother, my killer, what can I possibly say? I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you, I’m glad you stood in my way.”

— Leonard Cohen

50. “Songs don’t dignify human activity. Human activity dignifies the song.”

— Leonard Cohen