“Victory over self will not lead us to glory. It is only a postponement of destruction. There is no lasting victory except for those who have faced and defeated death.”
Related quotes

Cited in Behind the Scenes of Third Reich Diplomacy http://leninist.biz/en/1984/BSTRD194/8-Conclusion

“Only he who gives up is defeated. Everyone else is victorious.”
Source: Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), About Defeat

“To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat.”
(Late 1920s or the 1930s) Zbigniew Brzezinski in his introduction to Wacław Jędrzejewicz’s Piłsudski: A Life For Poland. Quoted from this website http://members.lycos.co.uk/jozefpilsudski/index2.html
Attributed