To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.

The saying ranks experiences of love by their human worth rather than by their outcome. “To love and win” is presented as the highest good—love reciprocated or fulfilled. Yet the second clause insists that “to love and lose” remains “the next best,” implying that love’s intrinsic value outweighs the pain of disappointment. The aphorism rejects a defensive calculus that avoids attachment to avoid hurt; it argues that emotional risk is preferable to emotional sterility. In Victorian terms, it also reads as a moral exhortation: love enlarges the self and refines sympathy, and even grief can be a form of moral knowledge. The structure (best/next best) gives consolation without denying loss.