It's happened to all of us. As you say, a nice saying.
There's an earlier, similar Latin version – Ars longa vita brevis – which can be translated either as Art endures but life is short, or as Art takes a long time, life is short. It may be intended to mean both, of course. The Romans were good at pithy sayings, inter alia.
That version was pinched from a Greek, Hippocrates. He added that opportunities were few, experiment dangerous and judgement difficult, but he must have had one of the bigger iPads. Who knows where he got it from?
It's a sentiment that must have occurred to many workers. It would certainly have come into the head of some unremembered pyramid-builder.