“What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway!”

Source: Ahmad Nasser al-Mohammed al-Sabah (2022) cited in " Kuwaiti foreign minister visits Lebanon to mend Gulf standoff https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/22/kuwaiti-foreign-minister-visits-lebanon-to-mend-gulf-standoff" on Aljazeera, 22 January 2022.

Confessions Of A Sceptic
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

[Your life is your message: Finding harmony with yourself, others, and the earth, Easwaran, Eknath, w:Eknath Easwaran, 1997, Hyperion, New York, 0786882662, http://books.google.com/books?id=xKlCo3suzTkC&pg=PA42&dq=Patience+can%27t+be+acquired+overnight.+It+is+just+like+building+up+a+muscle.+Every+day+you+need+to+work+on+it+inauthor:eknath+inauthor:easwaran&hl=en&ei=9UCVTqyUKuKsiAKB1oy6CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Patience%20can%27t%20be%20acquired%20overnight.%20It%20is%20just%20like%20building%20up%20a%20muscle.%20Every%20day%20you%20need%20to%20work%20on%20it%20inauthor%3Aeknath%20inauthor%3Aeaswaran&f=false] (p. 42) (work originally published 1992)

After 50 years what democracy is this?

Variant: It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy.
Source: Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985), Chapter 19: Hamburgers,Skyline and Deadline
Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Context: Once again, life had a lesson to teach me: It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy. Sure, I'd gotten tired of this tiny space, but I'd had a good home here. In the time it takes to swill two cans of beer, all had had sublimed like morning mist. My job, my whiskey, my peace and quiet, my solitude, my Sormerset Maugham, and John Ford collections-all of it trashed and worthless.

As quoted in Asadollah Alam (1991), The Shah and I: The Confidential Diary of Iran's Royal Court, 1968-77, page 552
Attributed