QuoteProject
Maybe there's a God above, As for me, all I've ever seemed to learn from love Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you. Yeah but it's not a complaint that you hear tonight, It's not the laughter of someone who claims to have seen the light No it's a cold and it's a very lonely Hallelujah.
Leonard Cohen
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote reflects a struggle with love and spirituality, expressing feelings of loneliness and disillusionment.

In this quote, Leonard Cohen contemplates the complexities of love and the often painful realities it brings. He contrasts the idea of a divine presence with his own experiences, suggesting that love can lead to conflict and sorrow rather than joy and fulfillment. The imagery of a 'cold and lonely Hallelujah' evokes a sense of bittersweet poignancy, highlighting that even in the search for love and light, one can encounter deep emotional isolation.

Themes

LoveLonelinessSpiritualityDisillusionmentHeartbreak

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about the complexities of modern love, this quote can illustrate how relationships can feel isolating.

More from Leonard Cohen

What is most original in a man's nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are forced on the world by men who simply cannot bear the pain of living with what is. Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. If Hitler had been born in Nazi Germany he wouldn't have been content to enjoy the atmosphere.
Leonard CohenRead
I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others; it's for others to use.
Leonard CohenRead
Be With Me In The Phases Of My Work Because My Brain Feels Like It Has Been Whipped And I Yearn To Make A Small Perfect Thing Which Will Live In Your Morning Like Curious Static Through A President's Elegy Or A Nude Hunchback Acquiring A Tan On The Crowded Oily Beach.
Leonard CohenRead
I heard of a man who says words so beautifully that if he only speaks their name women give themselves to him. If I am dumb beside your body while silence blossoms like tumors on our lips it is because I hear a man climb stairs and clear his throat outside our door.
Leonard CohenRead
I think what we like about music - and what we like about art in general....is that enterprise that stops our minds from spinning. Because we're always all over the place. A good song, a good lyric is a movie: it will just focus and calm and confer significance on this completely bewildering reality that all of us live in.
Leonard CohenRead
Most of the time one is discouraged by the work, but now and again by some grace something stands out and invites you to work on it, to elaborate it or animate it in some way. It's a mysterious process.
Leonard CohenRead

Similar quotes

I dreamt we walked together along the shore. We made satisfying small talk and laughed. This morning I found sand in my shoe and a seashell in my pocket. Was I only dreaming?
Maya AngelouRead
Admiration is a very short lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object, unless it still be fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a new perpetual succession of miracles rising up to its view.
Joseph AddisonRead
Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
John DonneRead
The battle for our hearts is fought on the pages of our calendar.
Bob GoffRead
The force that unites the elements to become all things is Love, also called Aphrodite; Love brings together dissimilar elements into a unity, to become a composite thing. Love is the same force that human beings find at work in themselves whenever they feel joy, love and peace. Strife, on the other hand, is the force responsible for the dissolution of the one back into its many, the four elements of which it was composed.
EmpedoclesRead
Fish got to swim, birds got to fly_x000D_ I got to love one man till I die_x000D_ Can't help lovin' dat man of mine.
Oscar Hammerstein IiRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.