burn the candle at both ends

Calque of French brûler la chandelle par les deux bouts. First attested in the 18th century, originally in the sense “to be doubly profligate”.

• "Von Gerhard's face was unsmiling. “So,” he said, slowly. “You burn the candle at both ends. All day you write, is it not so? And at night you come home to write still more? Ach, Kindchen!—Na, we shall change all that. […]"
• "I don’t look older, I just look worse, I think. Honestly, when I’m walking down the street, no one’s ever like, “Hey, look at that man!” I think they’re just like “Whoa! That tall child looks terrible! Get some rest, tall child! You can't keep burning the candle at both ends!""
• "The dividends […] were divided from capital and not from profit—for, in truth, the concern never earned a penny in the sense in which the term profit is commonly employed. […] The pipe-making concern burned the candle at both ends, and burned it steadily; […]"
• "From what I hear, he's a regular dog; he's rolling in money; he's taking three mistresses and a cook along with him. All these great artists burn the candle at both ends; they require a dissolute life, that stirs the imagination to some extent."
• "And another thing not to be forgotten is that the expense rate, the cost of production, has kept pace with the reduction in premiums, thus burning the candle at both ends; […]"
• "Speaking financially, Mrs. Ormsby had burned the candle at both ends. Her establishment was costly on the one hand; her pleasures costly on the other."
• "Now the Department of the Interior is trying to burn the candle at both ends by narrowing the margin of profit and at the same time cutting down the amount of production."
• "Oceana is a world younger than our own, wedded to a star with but a fraction of the life expectancy of Sol. It is a world burning the candle at both ends, enjoying twice the light in half the time, and spinning all the faster toward annihilation and the Void."

• burn the midnight oil
• not worth the candle
• the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long