Citations:use it or lose it

Proverb: "skills and knowledge that are seldom applied are likely to be lost with time"

 * 2009 — Angela Eward-Mangione, 101 Ways to Score Higher on Your GRE: What You Need to Know About the Graduate Record Exam Explained Simply, Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc. (2009), ISBN 9781601382245, page 181:
 * The reason that everyone must study for this section of the test is because no GRE test taker took their high school math classes yesterday, or last month for that matter. Have you ever heard the expression, "Use it or lose it?"
 * 2009 — Jay R. Slosar, The Culture of Excess: How America Lost Self-Control and Why We Need to Redefine Success, ABC-CLIO, LLC (2009), ISBN 9780313377686, page 89:
 * Today's clerk does not have to count out the change as those in the 1950s. Calculators and computers rule the day. But use it or lose it, and the ability to make calculations in one's head declines.
 * 2011 — Tim Wagle & Paul Theobald, "Connecting Communities and Schools: Accountability in the Post-NCLB Era", in The Phenomenon of Obama and the Agenda for Education: Can Hope Audaciously Trump Neoliberalism (eds. Paul R. Carr & Brad J. Porfilio), Information Age Publishing Inc. (2011), ISBN 9781617354502, page 262:
 * Any piece of curriculum, devoid of an opportunity to wield it, suffers the same fate as unutilized Spanish instruction. The time-tested colloquialism is accurate: use it or lose it.

Proverb: "property and privileges will be lost if they are not utilized"

 * 2010 — Oliver Berry, Brittany & Normandy, Lonely Planet (2010), ISBN 9781741042382, page 328:
 * Once you buy a Prem's ticket, it's use it or lose it — getting your money back or changing the time is not allowed.
 * 2011 — Marq De Villiers, Our Way Out: Principles for a Post-Apocalyptic World, McClelland & Stewart (2011), ISBN 9780771026485, page 310:
 * The legal rationale was simple: in much of the west, water rights operate under the "use it or lose it" principle. If you don't use the water, others had the right to appropriate it and use it themselves.
 * 2011 — Jim Northrup, Anishinaabe Syndicated: A View from the Rez, Minnesota Historical Society Press (2011), ISBN 9780873518239, page 32:
 * Judge Crabb said that Indians were not logging in treaty times, so they shouldn't be allowed to log today. In other words, use it or lose it.
 * 2012 — Kevin Bleyer, Me the People: Or, One Man's Quest to Rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America, Random House (2012), ISBN 9781400069354, page 307:
 * The way I see it, if you don't care, you shouldn't count.
 * So there you are: If you don't vote in this election, you don't get to vote in the next one. Use it or lose it.