A Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

DONALDSON Root into Europe ii.16 ‘Didn’t see service as such. Supply and demand

myself. Pay and personnel. Laundry and so forth. An army marches on its stomach.’ 2002

Washington Times 30 Jan. E4 (Hazel comic strip) ‘An army marches on its stomach.’

‘And retreats on its..’ food and drink; soldiers

around see what GOES around comes around.

arrive see it is BETTER to travel hopefully than to arrive.

ART is long and life is short

Hippocrates (Aphorisms I. I. life is short, but art is long)
compared the difficulties encountered in learning the art of medicine or healing with the
shortness of human life. Hippocrates’ saying was alluded to by Seneca in his dialogue ‘On the
Brevity of Life’ (De brevitate vitae I: vitam brevem esse, longam artem) and from this version
the usual Latin form of the tag is derived: ars longa, vita brevis, art is long, life is short. Art is
now commonly understood in the proverb in a less specific sense. In quot. 1958, it refers to
(the durability of) a work of art.

c 1380 CHAUCER Parliament of Fowls 1. 1 The lyf so short, the craft so long to

lerne. 1558 W. BULLEIN Government of Health 5 V And although oure life be shorte, yet

the arte of phisicke is long. 1581 G. PETTIE tr. S. Guazzo’s Civil Conversation I. 16 An

art is long and life is short. 1710 S. PALMER Proverbs 380 Art is Long, Life Short. Our

Philosophical Meditations on Time are very Obscure and Confus’d. 1869 M. ARNOLD

Culture & Anarchy vi. If..we take some other criterion of man’s well-being than the cities

he has built.. our Liberal friends.. take us up very sharply. ‘Art is long’, says the Times,

‘and life is short.’ 1958 L. DURRELL Balthazar IV. xiii. The shapely hand on his

shoulder still wore the great ring taken from the tomb of a Byzantine youth. Life is short,

art long. 1987 ‘C. AIRD’ Dead Liberty viii. ‘The art is long,’ Sloan heard himself saying

aloud. .. ‘And life is short. I know that.’ Dr. Bressingham completed the quotation

brusquely. life; mortality

ash see when the OAK is before the ash, then you will only get a splash; beware of an
OAK it draws the stroke.

ASK a silly question and you get a silly answer

With allusion to PROVERBS xxvi. 5 (AV) Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be