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 It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
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Usually, everyone loses most of his (her) health like a spendthrift and the remaining part of it he (she) wastes like a miser!
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The complete quotation:
"It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a
miser, better to live and be done with it, than to die daily in the sick
room."
-- Robert Louis Stevenson
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Living in the times featuring the ubiquitous obsession with healthy longevity, it is hard to appreciate this quotation.
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Good point, Anatolian. According to Stevenson's biography: "Handicapped from youth by delicate health, he struggled all his life against tuberculosis."
He died at age 44 on a tropical island where he had gone for his health. Obviously the words had special meaning for him.
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Daemon wrote:It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) The choices, at first glance, seem equally appalling: lose it or waste it? What matters is how the limited spending account of life is used. Stevenson made the best of what he was given to spend, in spite of the adversity of chronic illness.
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That's interesting!!! I always thought that 'spendthrift' was synonymous with 'miser'. i.e. - spend = to pay out or use up - thrift = wise management of money, frugality Good to know that I've been using this world (rarely) opposite to its meaning all these years. Thanks 
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