HippocraticHardships

Years ago I saw unattributed on a .sig line: :"Life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting, experimenting dangerous, reasoning difficult."

It stuck in my mind --- an archetypal aphorism. But only today did I learn that it's the first line in The Aphorisms by Hippocrates, ~400 BCE. Alternative translations include Francis Adams's: :"Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult."

or perhaps: :"Life is short, art is long, occasion sudden, experiment dangerous, judgment difficult."

Good advice, for physicians and everyone else....

TopicPhilosophy - TopicLife - Datetag20010828

(correlates: MetaJoke2, RichardMartin, OnIrreducibility, ...)