Quotation

Spring 2009

Quotations submitted by readers of the website, selected as having some connection to psychoanalytic understanding.
Sometimes there will be a commentary on the quotation, from a member of the BPAS and in other instances the words will stand by themselves with no further comment.
If you would like to suggest a quotation with some relevance to psychoanalytic understanding, please email the editors, including the word 'quotation' in the subject line of your email. The email address is at the bottom of this page.
 


 

Ars longa, vita brevis is part of an aphorism by the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, usually truncated to its first two statements, art is long, life is short.

The full text in Latin is: 'Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile'.

The full text is often rendered in English as 'Life is short, [the] art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult'.

Also, from Aphorism, section I, no. 1: 'Life is short, art [of medicine] is long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decisions difficult. The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals cooperate'.

The first two phrases are often quoted by themselves, and thus misconstrued to mean that art is longer-lasting than individual lives. It seems more likely that Hippocrates meant that learning our craft is a process that only ends with our death; this urgency becomes apparent in the full aphorism.