The cutting of the gem has to be finished before you can see whether it shines.
Interpretation
Success and beauty are often the result of effort and patience that are not immediately visible.
This quote by Leonard Cohen suggests that the true value or brilliance of something, much like a gem, only becomes apparent after significant work and the right conditions are applied. It highlights the importance of perseverance and the process of development, emphasizing that the end result may not be evident until the work is completed.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a graduation speech to highlight the importance of hard work.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.
The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind.
When the mind withdraws into itself and dispenses with facts it makes only chaos.
I learned at Yale, one of the biggest lessons was to learn how special I am and therefore how totally unspecial I am. I was special among everyone else who was special. The fact that we're all so individual and that's what makes us special.
A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity.
If you send up a weather vane or put your thumb up in the air every time you want to do something different, to find out what people are going to think about it, you're going to limit yourself. That's a very strange way to live.
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