Quoted in History of Sikh Struggles (1989) by Gurmit Singh, p. 189.
Variant: Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside while still alive. Never surrender.
“The best and greatest winning is a true friend; and the greatest loss is the loss of time.”
The Sayings of the Wise (1555)
"Of the Cruelty of Man"
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XX Humorous Writings
Context: Animals will be seen on the earth who will always be fighting against each other with the greatest loss and frequent deaths on each side. And there will be no end to their malignity; by their strong limbs we shall see a great portion of the trees of the vast forests laid low throughout the universe; and, when they are filled with food the satisfaction of their desires will be to deal death and grief and labour and wars and fury to every living thing; and from their immoderate pride they will desire to rise towards heaven, but the too great weight of their limbs will keep them down. Nothing will remain on earth, or under the earth or in the waters which will not be persecuted, disturbed and spoiled, and those of one country removed into another. And their bodies will become the sepulture and means of transit of all they have killed.
O Earth! why dost thou not open and engulf them in the fissures of thy vast abyss and caverns, and no longer display in the sight of heaven such a cruel and horrible monster.
Source: The Limits of State Action (1792), Ch. 16
Book VII, 7.68-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VII
Misattributed
Source: Robert McAfee Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McAfee_Brown. Preface for the 25th anniversary edition of Night https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_%28book%29. Page v, Bantam Books paperback; 1982 reissue edition.
“The tragedy of life is not death but what we let die inside of us while we live.”
letter to William Winter, 23 April 1886, quoted in Life and art of Edwin Booth, pp. 306–307 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015053687821;view=1up;seq=360
