Quotes about loss

„All novels are, or should be, written for both men and women to read, and I am at loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.“

—  Anne Brontë, book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Preface, 2nd edition (22 July 1848)
Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)
Context: I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are, or should be, written for both men and women to read, and I am at loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.

„If every cigarette you smoke takes seven minutes off of your life, every game of Dungeons & Dragons you play delays the loss of your virginity by seven hours.“

—  Marilyn Manson American rock musician and actor 1969

Source: The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

„There is no greater misfortune in the world than the loss of reason.“

—  Mikhail Bulgakov, book The Master and Margarita

Source: The Master and Margarita

„We have lost a battle, but I assure to you that we will not lose the war! I cannot say more at the present moment although I know the losses are crowded in your minds. That this happened does not hold importance. What counts is not to lose confidence in the future of Germany. At the same time everyone must understand the gravity of the situation. This moment will be enough to distinguish the true men from the inept ones. Every soldier has the same responsibilities: if the advancing one falls, another must be ready to take his place in order to go on.“

—  Walter Model German field marshal 1891 - 1945

September 3 1944, <Appeal to the Soldiers of the Army of the West>. Quoted in "Rückzug: The German Retreat from France, 1944" - Page 191 - by Joachim Ludewig - 2012

„Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies within us while we live.“

—  Norman Cousins American journalist 1915 - 1990

Quoted in History of Sikh Struggles (1989) by Gurmit Singh, p. 189.

„"There is no God," cry the masses more and more vociferously; and with the loss of God man loses his sense of values — is, as it were, massacred because he feels himself of no account.“

—  Karl Jaspers German psychiatrist and philosopher 1883 - 1969

Man in the Modern Age (1933)

„Some friends are more significant and important than other friends. A special friend can often change your life for the better. You will know when this special person enters your life because of the respect you have for them. They will never lie or set you aside for someone or something else. You will have undying trust in this person that any words spoken will never find another ear. They always returned calls at the earliest possible time. They will check in often to see what is going on in your life and just talk. Your accomplishments will be applauded with praise and losses will never be repeated. This friend has you melted within their heart as you do theirs. When you find such a person be sure to return the love and understand they have gifted you and your life.“

—  RJ Intindola (Gandolfo)

1983

„Everybody feels these moments of sadness and moments of loss and sometimes I think everybody can relate to sitting alone and feeling like crap and a friend of yours comes up and starts like, you know, 'Come on, feel happy,' and you don't want that. Sometimes its alright to let yourself be upset about something and so that you can show yourself that regardless of how low you feel, you can always rise out of it, but not at the moment. And so the song ends with the lyric, 'I believe we all fall down' but I don't say 'but we we get back up'. It's just, sometimes you fall down and sometimes you fell low, and that's okay.“

—  Andrew Biersack American singer-songwriter 1990

„Let me tell you about heartache and the loss of god“

—  Jim Morrison lead singer of The Doors 1943 - 1971

An American Prayer (1978)
Context: Now listen to this...
Ill tell you about texas radio and the big beat
Soft driven, slow and mad Like some new language
Reaching your head with the cold, sudden fury of a divine messenger
Let me tell you about heartache and the loss of god
Wandering, wandering in hopeless night
Out here in the perimeter there are no stars...
Out here we is stoned...
Immaculate.

„Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.“

—  Arthur Schopenhauer, book Parerga and Paralipomena

Meistens belehrt uns erst der Verlust über den Wert der Dinge.
Source: Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

„In the democratic forms of government the operation of universal suffrage tends toward the selection of the average man for public office rather than the man qualified by birth, education, and integrity. From a racial point of view, it will inevitably increase the preponderance of the lower types and cause a corresponding loss of efficiency in the community as a whole.“

—  Madison Grant, book The Passing of the Great Race

The Passing of the Great Race (1916)

„Nor do I hold that every kind of gain is always serviceable. Gain, I know, has render’d many great. But there are times when loss should be preferr’d to gain. (translator Thornton)“

—  Plautus, Captivi

Captivi, Act II, scene 2, line 75.
Variant translation: There are occasions when it is undoubtedly better to incur loss than to make gain. (translation by Henry Thomas Riley)
Captivi (The Prisoners)
Original: (la) Non ego omnino lucrum omne esse utile homini existimo. Scio ego, multos jam lucrum luculentos homines reddidit. Est etiam, ubi profecto damnum praestet facere, quam lucrum.

„One loses, as one grows older, something of the lightness of one's dreams; one begins to take life up in both hands, and to care more for the fruit than the flower, and that is no great loss perhaps.“

—  W.B. Yeats Irish poet and playwright 1865 - 1939

Source: The Celtic Twilight: Faerie and Folklore

„I will not spend the money for myself. I will rather spend it in special business on a no-profit-no-loss policy. We will also establish an eye hospital where even beggars will be given treatment at the cost of Taka 10-20.“

—  Muhammad Yunus Bangladeshi banker, economist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient 1940

The Daily Star (14 October 2006)

„You will have seen that my brother died suddenly in Marseilles. I inherit from him a title, but not a penny of money, as he was bankrupt. A title is a great nuisance to me, and I am at a loss what to do, but at any rate I do not wish it employed in connection with any of my literary work. There is, so far as I know, only one method of getting rid of it, which is to be attainted of high treason, and this would involve my head being cut off on Tower Hill. This method seems to me perhaps somewhat extreme…“

—  Bertrand Russell logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist 1872 - 1970

Letter to W. W. Norton, 11 March, 1931
1930s

„Our character is not defined by the struggles and conflicts we traverse in life, nor by wins and losses; but instead, by the battles we dare to fight.“

—  RJ Intindola (Gandolfo)

1972

„A certain proverb, that the whole world knows,
Says that loss also steals away our senses,
And that the man thus robbed, like madman goes
About, and right and left the blame dispenses.“

—  Francesco Berni Italian poet 1497 - 1535

(Ed un certo proverbio cosl fatto
Dice cbe) il danno toglie ancbe il cervello;
E cbe cbi e rubato, come matto
va dando la colpa a questo e quello.
XLV, 4
Rifacimento of Orlando Innamorato

„Napoleon, far more Italian than French, Italian by race, by instinct, imagination, and souvenir, considers in his plan the future of Italy, and, on casting up the final accounts of his reign, we find that the net profit is for Italy and the net loss is for France.“

—  Hippolyte Taine French critic and historian 1828 - 1893

" Napoleon's Views of Religion https://archive.org/stream/jstor-25102177/25102177_djvu.txt" (1891)

„[F]rom the earliest periods of time [man] alone has divided the empire of the world between him and Nature. …[H]e rather enjoys than possesses, and it is by constant and perpetual activity and vigilance that he preserves his advantage, for if those are neglected every thing languishes, changes, and returns to the absolute dominion of Nature. She resumes her power, destroys the operations of man; envelopes with moss and dust his most pompous monuments, and in the progress of time entirely effaces them, leaving man to regret having lost by his negligence what his ancestors had acquired by their industry. Those periods in which man loses his empire, those ages in which every thing valuable perishes, commence with war and are completed by famine and depopulation. Although the strength of man depends solely upon the union of numbers, and his happiness is derived from peace, he is, nevertheless, so regardless of his own comforts as to take up arms and to fight, which are never-failing sources of ruin and misery. Incited by insatiable avarice, or blind ambition, which is still more insatiable, he becomes callous to the feelings of humanity; regardless of his own welfare, his whole thoughts turn upon the destruction of his own species, which he soon accomplishes. The days of blood and carnage over, and the intoxicating fumes of glory dispelled, he beholds, with a melancholy eye, the earth desolated, the arts buried, nations dispersed, an enfeebled people, the ruins of his own happiness, and the loss of his real power.“

—  Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon French natural historian 1707 - 1788

Buffon's Natural History (1797) Vol. 10, pp. 340-341 https://books.google.com/books?id=respAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA340, an English translation of Histoire Naturelle (1749-1804).