Quotations about:
loss
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.
Here dead lie we because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young.A. E. Housman (1859-1936) English scholar and poet [Alfred Edward Housman]
More Poems, #36 (1936)
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Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
Steve Jobs (1955-2011) American computer inventor, entrepreneur
Commencement Address, Stanford University (2005)
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How frighteningly few are the persons whose death would spoil our appetite and make the world seem empty.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
“Thoughts of Eric Hoffer,” New York Times Magazine (1971-04-25)
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Croesus said to Cambyses: That peace was better than war; because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in wars the fathers did bury their sons.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Apophthegms, #149 (1625)
See Herodotus.
There are worse things than losing an election; the worst thing is to lose one’s convictions and not tell the people the truth.
Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone — but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.W. H. Auden (1907-1973) Anglo-American poet [Wystan Hugh Auden]
“Stop All the Clocks [Funeral Blues],” st. 3 (1936)
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This stanza is not in the original version of the poem, for the verse play The Ascent of F6 (1936) (with Christopher Isherwood).
Instead, it appears in the revised cabaret song that Auden wrote in 1937-1938. It is this latter version, less tied to the play, that is commonly collected, and that gained popularity when recited in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).
Life […] is really a constant suffering, or, at any rate, […] a business that does not cover the costs.
[Da das Leben […] eigentlich ein stetes Leiden, oder wenigstens, […] ein Geschäft ist, welches die Kosten nicht deckt.]
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher
Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung [The World as Will and Representation], Vol. 2, ch. 19 “Vom Primat des Willens im Selbstbewußtseyn [On the primacy of the Will in Self-Consciousness],” § 11 (1844 ed.) [tr. Payne (1958)]
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(Source (German)). Usually paraphrased: "Life is a business that does not cover the costs."
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Good fame is like fire. When you have kindled it, you may easily preserve it; but if once you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again; at least, not make it burn as bright as it did.
Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up save in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
To know a man, observe how he wins his object, rather than how he loses it; for when we fail, our pride supports us; when we succeed, it betrays us.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, § 265 (1820)
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And while I at length debate and beate the bush,
There shall steppe in other men and catch the burdes.John Heywood (1497?-1580?) English playwright and epigrammist
Proverbes, Part 1, ch. 3 (1546)
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LUCIO: Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Measure for Measure, Act 1, sc. 4, l. 85ff (1.4.85-87) (1604)
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IAGO: Poor and content is rich, and rich enough;
But riches fineless is as poor as winter
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Othello, Act 3, sc. 3, l. 202ff (3.3.202-204) (1603)
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