Vita brevis; ars longa, memoria servata usuque renovato; amor per artes technicas longas omnia vincit.
Vita brevis; ars longa, memoria servata usuque renovato; amor per artes technicas longas omnia vincit.
Life is brief; art and technique endure, with memory preserved and use renewed; love, through long technical arts, conquers all.
Human life is brief, and what one person can do directly is limited.
Yet learning, craft, knowledge, works, records, and data can continue beyond one person and beyond one generation.
They do not remain alive merely by being frozen in place.
They endure because memory is preserved while use, method, medium, and practice are renewed.
In this motto, ars is not limited to fine art.
It includes craft, skill, method, knowledge, engineering, computation, communication, documentation, and every disciplined way by which human beings understand nature, create tools, order things, preserve information, and pass knowledge to others.
Memory is preserved because knowledge, works, and data can be recorded, copied, protected, and transmitted.
A single body or a single device may perish, but what is written, duplicated, backed up, and handed on can remain beyond one person and beyond one age.
Use is renewed because instruments, media, operating methods, and technical paradigms change over time.
The same memory may be preserved through new media; the same knowledge may be applied in new ways.
What was once done with paper, tablets, or simple instruments may later be done through computers, networks, and other media.
Renewal does not destroy memory; it keeps memory alive.
Thus art and technique are long not because they never change, but because they persist through preserved memory and renewed use.
A technique that is not transmitted disappears.
A technique that is never renewed becomes rigid.
But a technique that preserves memory and renews use grows through time.
Finally, love is the principle that directs technical arts.
Without love, technique may become mere power.
When love guides technique, knowledge and tools are turned toward protecting, helping, cultivating, and enriching life.
Here, to conquer does not mean to dominate.
It means to overcome oblivion, fragility, difficulty, and discontinuity through love and art.
This English version is an auxiliary translation and commentary.
The canonical text is the Latin version in Latin Canon.