Ars longa, vita brevis —Art is long, life is short.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

But as I looked longer I saw that it was faced by a ledge cut out of the friable soil, on which I was now able to descry the pronounced white of two or three tent-tops and some other signs of life, encouraging enough to the eye of one whose lot it was to crawl like a fly up that tremendous mountain-side.
— from The Woman in the Alcove by Anna Katharine Green

It has been drilled into us by the tales of our boyhood, and, in later life, it has become part of that universal desire to get something for nothing which lies behind our most honest efforts to obtain the goods of this world.
— from The Treasury of Ancient Egypt Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology by Arthur E. P. Brome (Arthur Edward Pearse Brome) Weigall

The wood on the edges had aged to the silvery-brown of the rest of the barn-boards, and it looked like it had been there forever.
— from A Place so Foreign by Cory Doctorow

From the heights Where thy soul alights Lift thy head to listen for the voice of Art is calling: "Eagle-heart, child-heart, Love is love, and art is art, Answer while thy soul is strong; Love is brief, but art is long; Love is sighs, but art is song; Answer, for thy bride awaits, and moonless night is falling!"
— from Pan and Æolus: Poems by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

Ant Maria said well he cant be sent back now so he sleeps on my bed and i like London it is a kweer place the houses are very big and i like my cussens pretty well they are all gals their nozes are very big i like Polly.
— from A Flat Iron for a Farthing; or, Some Passages in the Life of an only Son by Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

And, being an ignorant landward lad, I could not find the fitting words wherewithal to speak to a maiden gently bred like the little Mary Gordon.
— from The Standard Bearer by S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett