To every people the land is given on condition. Perceived or not, there is a Covenant, beyond the constitution, beyond sovereign guarantee, beyond the nation's sweetest dreams of itself.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that land ownership comes with responsibilities and is part of a deeper moral agreement.
Leonard Cohen's quote reflects on the idea that ownership of land is not simply a legal right but also carries ethical obligations. It implies that there is an unspoken promise or covenant that binds people to the land, emphasizing the responsibility to respect and care for it, transcending mere constitutional rights or national aspirations.
In practice
During a discussion on sustainable practices, one might say this quote to emphasize the duty we have towards the land.
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.
I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.
And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone or that's an evil one because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels.
The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small. It is nearly nil.
The most appropriate type of daily life for me was a day-by-day world destruction; peace was the most difficult and abnormal state to live in.
If the newspapers of a country are filled with good news, the jails of that country will be filled with good people.
At the moment you are most in awe of all there is about life that you don't understand, you are closer to understanding it all than at any other time.
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