Art is long, and time is fleeting

↰ texts · 528 words · Published: Nov 17, 2025

(artist unknown)

“Art is long, and time is fleeting”, says this debossed graphic on the hardcover of Andrew Loomis’ tome from 1947, Creative Illustration 1 . While the book is full of valuable gems on the art, practice, and motivation of drawing and illustration (I’ll dip into them at a later point), I’d like to focus on just this saying on the cover, for now.

Often translated as “The Art is Long, and Life is Short”, the phrase comes from the Latin— “Ars Longa, Vita Brevis”, a translation of a classical Greek aphorism by Hippocrates, that originally referred to the art of medicine 2 . But as referenced here, I think the sentiment applies to any art, or any craft worth doing.
 
Here’s the Latin saying, in whole:

Vīta brevis,

ars longa;

occāsiō praeceps,

experīmentum perīculōsum,

iūdicium difficile.
 
Translated, it reads:

Life is short,

and craft long;

opportunity fleeting,

experimentations perilous,

and judgment difficult. 3

 
Or alternatively, from the Greek translation (with an interesting twist on the meaning):

Life is short,

and Art long;

the crisis fleeting;

experience perilous,

and decision difficult. 4
 

 

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Here’s an illustration by MBrainTheory, referencing a show, and riffing on similar themes:

“Life’s barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at.” — Rust Cohle

Perhaps a bit morbid? — or even nostalgic, in a world that seems to be prioritising de-skilling and genocide? Valuable advice, I think. I often return to this when I feel I’ve drifted too far from what I know I should be doing, or when I’m not dedicating enough time to my creative practice — to keep me on track and focus on what’s important. Death stalks us all, and there’s a lot to master.

But the subtext in this quote also seems to be that, the thing that one gets good at is almost.. circumstantial, an accident or an afterthought — so better to be careful what that is, lest yet you get caught up for years refining, and practising something you don’t like (perhaps something you may not even get good at, at the end of it!); or something that your heart isn’t into anymore, or something that you know doesn’t serve a purpose that you believe in.

 
As for the focus on getting good at one thing, it goes against all the discourse on generalists versus specialists, that people aren’t meant to be specialists and so on (for example, the saying, “a human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, …” ) 5 .

I feel that being good at one thing helps direct one’s energies, and gives one a sense of purpose. There’s a similar idea in ‘The Definite Chief Aim’ (Napoloen Hill, Mitch Horowitz) — “Life yields itself to a definite focus”— that I’ll write about in an upcoming post. The clock is ticking!
 

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Roshan Shakeel