art is long and life is short

Definition 
Works of art are far more enduring than human lives: He used the works of the great artists of the Italian Renaissance to illustrate the saying "Art is long and life is short." The proverb originated in the writings of the Greek physician Hippocrates (fourth century B.C.), where it was used with the meaning that life is too short to become fully versed in an art, specifically the profession of medicine. Chaucer translated this c. 1380 as "The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne." The proverb is still sometimes used with its ancient interpretation, as in Charles Dickens's novel Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–44): "This … is my chamber. I read here when the family suppose I have retired to rest. Sometimes I injure my health rather more than I can quite justify to myself, by doing so; but art is long and time is short." The proverb is also quoted in the Latin form "Ars longa, vita brevis."