“The tragedy is not to die, but to be wasted.”
Source: Hannibal
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Thomas Harris 66
American author and screenwriter 1940Related quotes

The 2,000 Year Old Man (and sequels)
Variant: Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.
“One of the greatest tragedies in life is to watch potential die untapped.”
“All love affairs are tragedies in the end unless the lovers die at the same moment.”
[Snare, 2003, Macmillan, ISBN 0312890451, p. 557]

“That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy.”
Bk. III, ch. 4.
1830s, Sartor Resartus (1833–1834)

“The tragedy of life is not death but what we let die inside of us while we live.”

Quoted in Good Housekeeping (November 1989), p. 92.
Context: Hope, faith, love and a strong will to live offer no promise of immortality, only proof of our uniqueness ans human beings and the opportunity to experience full growth even under the grimmest circumstances. Far more real than the ticking of time is the way we open up the minutes and invest them with meaning. Death is not the ultimate tragedy in life. The ultimate tragedy is to die without discovering the possibilities of full growth.