Loss

Loss is the hurtful condition of having lost something or someone, for which grief is a common response.

LOSS, n. Privation of that which we had, or had not. Thus, in the latter sense, it is said of a defeated candidate that he "lost his election"; and of that eminent man, the poet Gilder, that he has "lost his mind." It is in the former and more legitimate sense, that the word is used in the famous epitaph:

Here Huntington's ashes long have lain

Whose loss is our eternal gain,

For while he exercised all his powers

Whatever he gained, the loss was ours.

Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

Losers must have leave to speak.
- Colley Cibber, The Rival Fools (1709), Act I, line 17.

Our wasted oil unprofitably burns,
Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns.
- William Cowper, Conversation (1782), line 357. Referring to the story told by Pancirollus and others, of the lamp which burned for fifteen hundred years in the tomb of Tullia, daughter of Cicero.

Beaten paths are for beaten men.
- Eric Johnston, Braude's Second Encyclopedia of Stories, Quotes, and Anecdotes.

The joy of losing consists in this: Where there are no expectations, there is no disappointment.
- Charles Krauthammer, Column, April 23, 2010, "The joys of losing" at jewishworldreview.com.

it was just as important to me to recognize loss and turmoil just as I chose to share joy...I believe it is just as important to highlight and memorialize all aspects of our world and cultures. To me, it is important not to bury the shame and trauma caused by the issues you ask about.
- Daphne Odjig Interview (2014)

The Tigers put up a fine fight and, darn it, I did feel sorry for 'em in their dressing room, nobody slappin' 'em on the back; in fact, nobody in there but them. Game Mickey Cochrane sitting there, just removing bandage after bandage from almost all over himself. Real he-men; in a real he-man's game, with almost tears in their eyes; but not squawking—they just said "Old 'Diz' had everything." I can applaud a winner as loud as anyone, but somehow a loser appeals to me.
- Will Rogers, paying tribute to the Mickey Cochrane and his fellow Tigers, who had just been defeated by St. Louis in Game 7 of the 1934 World Series, in "Will Rogers Says," Imperial Valley Press (October 10, 1934), p. 20

Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and forever!
- Walter Scott, Lady of the Lake (1810), Canto III, Stanza 16.

Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,
But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
- William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III (c. 1591), Act V, scene 4, line 1.

It is inconceivable that something is lost forever.
- Šuruppak, Instructions of Shuruppak (3rd millennium BCE).

That loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more:
Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.
- Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849), Part VI, Stanza 2.

But over all things brooding slept
The quiet sense of something lost.
- Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849), Part LXXVIII, Stanza 2.

No man can lose what he never had.
- Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler (1653-1655), Part I, Chapter V.

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 462-63.

For 'tis a truth well known to most,
That whatsoever thing is lost,
We seek it, ere it comes to light,
In every cranny but the right.
- William Cowper, The Retired Cat, line 95.

Gli huomini dimenticano più teste la morte del padre, che la perdita del patrimonie.
- A son could bear with great complacency, the death of his father, while the loss of his inheritance might drive him to despair.
- Machiavelli, Del. Prin, Chapter XVII. Same idea in Taylor, Philip Van Artevelde.

Things that are not at all, are never lost.
- Christopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander, First Sestiad, line 276.

What's saved affords
No indication of what's lost.
- Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton), The Scroll.

A wise man loses nothing, if he but save himself.
- Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Of Solitude.

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost;
When health is lost, something is lost;
When character is lost, all is lost!
- Motto Over the Walls of a School in Germany.

That puts it not unto the touch
To win or lose it all.
- William Francis Patrick Napier, Montrose and the Covenanters, Montrose's Poems, No. 1, Volume II, p. 566.

With each loss, new buds of victory unfold in our hearts.
- Ōsugi Sakae, The Power They Hold. Originally published in Kindai shisō (Modern Thought), Vol. 1, No. 9, June 1913. Translated by Michael Schauerte

The absence of lost things is felt most painfully when the things you possess stop providing satisfaction.
- Sanu Sharma, Lockdown

Periere mores, jus, decus, pietas, fides,
Et qui redire nescit, cum perit, pudor.
- We have lost morals, justice, honor, piety and faith, and that sense of shame which, once lost, can never be restored.
- Seneca the Younger, Agamemnon, CXII.

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