While you’re saving your face, you’re losing your ass.

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)

Quoted in Philip Geyelin, Lyndon B. Johnson and the World, ch. 6 (1966)
    (Source)

Geyelin said the phrase came up during "an august gathering of his most distinguished advisers when the question arose whether to honor an apparent US commitment to a proposition which Congress seemed unlikely to accept. Face-saving, the President observed, was not his major purpose in life," followed by the quote.