“Instead of rescuing the dirty industries of the last century, we should be boosting the clean ones that will lead us into safety in the coming century (Green New Deal). If there is one thing history teaches us, it's that moments of shock are profoundly volatile. We either lose a whole lot of ground, get fleeced by elites, and pay the price for decades, or we win progressive victories that seemed impossible just a few weeks earlier. This is no time to lose our nerve.”

Source: The Leftovers

Epilogue, p. 221
Eat and Run (2012)

Address to the Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Illinois. (21 July 1952); published in Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952) p. 17
Context: What counts now is not just what we are against, but what we are for. Who leads us is less important than what leads us — what convictions, what courage, what faith — win or lose. A man doesn't save a century, or a civilization, but a militant party wedded to a principle can.

U.S. president George Bush made those comments on January 1, 1990. The Watchtower magazine; In Search of a New World Order (15 July 1991)

2000s, 2005, Address to the National Endowment for Democracy (October 2005)

16
Mea culpa; suivi de la vie et l'oeuvre de Semmelweis (1937)

Variant: “You remember winning, don’t you? A battle won, somewhere?”
“No,” said the old man, deep under. “I don’t remember anyone winning anywhere any time. War’s never a winning thing, Charlie. You just lose all the time, and the one who loses last asks for terms. All I remember is a lot of losing and sadness and nothing good but the end of it. The end of it, Charles, that was a winning all to itself, having nothing to do with guns.
Source: Dandelion Wine (1957), p. 85

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in Warren, Michigan (August 11, 2016)

Instructions Given at the Conference (Fall 1950)
1950's