Lucius is preparing your lesson...
Lucius is preparing your lesson...
Daily Wisdom
One famous Latin saying every day with its full story, pronunciation, and where you'll still hear it today. Come back tomorrow for a new phrase.
“Art is long, life is short”
— Hippocrates (via Seneca, De Brevitate Vitae)
Hippocrates originally wrote this in Greek about the art of medicine — the craft takes a lifetime to master, but life is too short to learn it all. Seneca translated it into Latin and expanded the meaning to all human endeavors. The phrase became a meditation on mortality and ambition: we will never finish all we hope to create, but we must try anyway.
A favorite of artists, musicians, writers, and craftspeople worldwide. Found in art studios, music conservatories, and medical schools. Used in graduation speeches and creative writing classes. The tension between ambition and mortality that Hippocrates identified twenty-five centuries ago remains as urgent as ever.
art, skill, craft
noun (nominative)
long
adjective (feminine)
life
noun (nominative)
short, brief
adjective
Want to discover more Latin in everyday life?