Ars longa, vita brevis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Life Is Short" redirects here. For the One Tree Hill episode, see Life Is Short (One Tree Hill episode).
Ars longa, vita brevis is part of an aphorism by Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, usually truncated to its first two statements: art is long, life is short. The full text in Latin is:
- Ars longa,
- vita brevis,
- occasio praeceps,
- experimentum periculosum,
- iudicium difficile.
In this commonly found Latin translation, the first two statements have been switched from the Greek original.
Its original form in Hippocrates' work Aphorisms, (sect. I, no. 1) is:
- Ὁ βίος βραχὺς,
- ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρὴ,
- ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξὺς,
- ἡ δὲ πεῖρα σφαλερὴ,
- ἡ δὲ κρίσις χαλεπή.
The full text is often rendered in English as:
- Life is short,
- [the] art long,
- opportunity fleeting,
- experiment dangerous,
- judgment difficult.
Consider also Chaucer's “The lyf so short, the craft so longe to lerne,” (from Parlement of Foules)
