Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer

(Attributed)

The earliest reference to this translation I find, with no citation, is in Maturin Ballou, Edge-Tools of Speech (1886). Nineteenth Century books of quotations such as this often paraphrase passages, especially in translation, so it is altogether possible this particular wording was crafted by Ballou.