“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Expierience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

Last update Oct. 26, 2024. History

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Geoffrey Chaucer 99

English poet 1343–1400

Related quotes

“Art is long, life short; judgment difficult, opportunity transient.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Die Kunst ist lang, das Leben kurz, das Urteil schwierig, die Gelegenheit flüchtig.
Bk. VII, Ch. 9
Cf. Hippocrates, Ars longa vita brevis, Aphorisms 1:1
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786–1830)

“Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult. The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals cooperate.”

Hippocrates (-460–-370 BC) ancient Greek physician

Ὁ βίος βραχὺς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρὴ, ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξὺς, ἡ δὲ πεῖρα σφαλερὴ, ἡ δὲ κρίσις χαλεπή. Δεῖ δὲ οὐ μόνον ἑωυτὸν παρέχειν τὰ δέοντα ποιεῦντα, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸν νοσέοντα, καὶ τοὺς παρεόντας, καὶ τὰ ἔξωθεν.
1:1, Variant translation: Art is long; life is short; opportunity is fleeting; judgement is difficult; experience is deceitful. Compare: "The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne", Geoffrey Chaucer, The Assembly of Fowles, line 1.
Aphorisms

“Indubitably, Magick is one of the subtlest and most difficult of the sciences and arts. There is more opportunity for errors of comprehension, judgement and practice than in any other branch of physics.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Source: The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography

“Art is long, life is short.”
Ars longa, vita brevis.

Horace (-65–-8 BC) Roman lyric poet

Seneca's (De Brevitate Vitae, 1.1) Latin translation of the Greek by Hippocrates.
Misattributed

“Art indeed is long, but life is short.”

Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) English metaphysical poet and politician

Upon the Death of Lord Hastings (1649), last line
Variant: "Art is long, and time is fleeting." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life (1839).

“Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow book Voices of the Night

St. 4.
Cf. Andrew Marvell, Upon the Death of Lord Hastings (1649): "Art indeed is long, but life is short".
A Psalm of Life (1839)
Source: Voices of the Night

“Life is short, but the years are long.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Methuselah's Children

Part of the secret "call and response" codewords by which members of the long-lived Howard Families can identify others:
: Life is short.
But the years are long.
Not while the evil days come not.
Methuselah's Children (1958)