"What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Novelists from CanadaGuitarists from CanadaSinger-songwriters from CanadaPoets from MontrealScreenwriters from Canada
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Beautiful Losers (1966)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, CC, GOQ (21 September 1934 - 7 November 2016) was a Canadian poet, songwriter, singer, and novelist noted for the bold exploration of religion, politics, sexuality, personal relationships and personal isolation in his works.
99 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Leonard Cohen →
Related Quotes
"Rust rust rust in the engines of love and time"
"Although only one man may be receiving the favors of a woman, all men in her presence are warmed. That's the great Ge…"
"God is alive. Magic is afoot. God is alive. Magic is afoot. God is afoot. Magic is alive. Alive is afoot. Magic never…"
"It was only when you walked away I saw you had the perfect ass. Forgive me for not falling in love with your face or …"
"Only in Canada could somebody with a voice like mine win 'Vocalist of the Year'."
"I am so often accused of gloominess and melancholy. And I think I'm probably the most cheerful man around. I don't co…"
"And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all, it must be done within the strict confines o…"
"Now, I don't want to give you the impression that I'm a great musicologist, but I'm a lot better than what I was desc…"
"I feel that, you know, the enormous luck I've had in being able to make a living, and to never have had to have writt…"
"And you kissed me shy as though I'd never been your lover"