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And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all, it must be done within the strict confines of dignity and beauty.

— Leonard Cohen

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Beauty

More quotes by Leonard Cohen

Courage is what others can't see, what is never affirmed. It is made of what you have thrown away and then come back for.

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river.

Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)

Every heart to love will come
But like a refugee.

The Future (1992)

It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.

Beautiful Losers (1966)

And here you are hurried,
And here you are gone;
And here is the love,
That it's all built upon.

Ten New Songs (2001)

All Leonard Cohen quotes →

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Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil.

Democritus Freeman (1948)

True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.

William Wordsworth

The great artists are the ones who dare to entitle to beauty things so natural that when they're seen afterward, people say: Why did I never realize before that this too was beautiful?

André Gide The Immoralist (1902)

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator.

William Shakespeare The Rape of Lucrece (1594)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Leonard Cohen (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.