What Does “art is long and life is short” mean?
Definition:
The phrase art is long and life is short is a proverb that suggests that works of art last much longer than human lives.
The origin of the phrase
The phrase comes from the first two lines of an Aphorism by the Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates.
Ars longa, vita brevis
What he meant by these lines is:
“it takes a long time to acquire and perfect one’s expertise (in, say, medicine) and one has but a short time in which to do it.”
Wikipedia
Example(s)
Jane: I think John spends too much time working on his new book.
Lisa: Yes, but art is long and life is short, you know.
This idiom is in the art category.