A dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

There’s no great LOSS without some gain

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  a 1641 D. FERGUSSON Scottish Proverbs (STS) no. 1408 Thair was never a grit loss without som small vantag. 1868 W. CLIFT Tim Bunker Papers 134 However, ‘there is no great loss but what there is some small gain,’ and Jake Frink claims that he has got his money’s worth in experience. 1937 L. I. WILDER On Banks of Plum Creek xxv. The hens . . were eating grasshoppers. . . ‘Well, we won’t have to buy feed for the hens. .. There’s no great loss without some gain.’ 1957 M. P. HOOD In Dark Night viii. I didn’t think there’d be enough business on the wharf for him to need me this afternoon. . . No loss without some small gain. "gains and losses
  

lost see BETTER to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all; he who HESITATES is lost; what a NEIGHBOUR gets is not lost; for WANT of a nail the shoe was lost.
lottery see MARRIAGE is a lottery.
loud see LONG and lazy, little and loud.
louder see ACTIONS speak louder than words.
louse see SUE a beggar and catch a louse.
LOVE and a cough cannot be hid
Cf. L. amor tussisque non celantur, love and a cough cannot be concealed.

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  a 1325 Cursor Mundi (EETS) 1. 4276 Luken luue at the end wil kith [concealed love will show itself in the end]. 1573 J. SANFORDE Garden of Pleasure 98^V Foure things cannot be kept close, Loue, the cough, fyre, and sorrowe. 1611 R. COT-GRAVE Dict. French & English s.v. Amour, We say, Loue, and the Cough cannot be hidden. 1640 G. HERBERT Outlandish Proverbs no. 49 Love and a Cough cannot be hid. 1863 G. ELIOT Romola I. vi. If there are two things not to be hidden—love and a cough—I say there is a third, and that is ignorance. 1994 R. DAVIES Cunning Man 458 Love and a cough cannot be hid. 2002 Washington Times 14 Feb. A21 Three things are hard to hide, says the Yiddish proverb: a cough, poverty and love. "love; secrecy