“Glory — once achieved, what is it worth?”

Variant: A lifetime of glory is worth a moment of pain. Louie thought: Let go.
Source: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Source: No Exit and Three Other Plays

Però che Amore è quel che dà la gloria,
E che fa l'omo degno ed onorato,
Amore è quel che dona la vittoria,
E dona ardire al cavalliero armato
Bk. 2, Canto 18, st. 3
Orlando Innamorato

1900s, A Square Deal (1903)
Context: Among ourselves we differ in many qualities of body, head, and heart; we are unequally developed, mentally as well as physically. But each of us has the right to ask that he shall be protected from wrong-doing as he does his work and carries his burden through life. No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing; and this is a prize open to every man, for there can be no better worth doing than that done to keep in health and comfort and with reasonable advantages those immediately dependent upon the husband, the father, or the son. There is no room in our healthy American life for the mere idler, for the man or the woman whose object it is throughout life to shirk the duties which life ought to bring. Life can mean nothing worth meaning, unless its prime aim is the doing of duty, the achievement of results worth achieving.

Source: What Do We Know

Source: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

A Hero of Our Time (1840; rev. 1841)