Word.ws English Dictionary

art is long, life is short

art is long, life is short proverb: art is more enduring than an individual's lifetime.

Proverb

art is long, life is short

  1. Art is more enduring than an individual's lifetime.
    • In the side of a storage structure, I note a surely-not-officially sanctioned graffiti slogan, "Art is Long, Life is Short".August 24, 2017, Passport Magazine, Hong Kong
    • Remembrance of Things Past Marc Lida's Proust Watercolors Jonathan Weinberg "Art is long, life is short," or so we are told.2002, Edmund White, Loss Within Loss: Artists in the Age of AIDS

Forms of art is long, life is short

alternative formlife is short, art is long
alternative formlife is temporary, art is forever
alternative formlife is short

Origin of art is long, life is short

Calque of Latin ars longa, vīta brevis

Questions about art is long, life is short

What does art is long, life is short mean?
Art is long, life is short means art is more enduring than an individual's lifetime.
What part of speech is art is long, life is short?
Art is long, life is short is a proverb.

Words near art is long, life is short in the dictionary

  1. art hoe
  2. art hoes
  3. art house
  4. art houses
  5. art imitates life
  6. art is long, life is short
  7. art journal
  8. art journals
  9. art line
  10. art lines
  11. art movement

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: art is long, life is short (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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