Memento Mori, a Latin phrase which means “Remember You Must Die”, is a popular practice among ancient stoics to remind themselves of their mortality. This might sound unusual after hearing it for the first time and for some sounds scary but actually it can make one be more appreciative of the present. Seneca, a popular stoic philosopher, said that one of his friends has a daily ritual by sitting aside a coffin with some wine imagining himself dead inside. If you think about it if you know you can leave the world right now, you will try to treasure every minute and second you have left with your time
Top 20 Quotes
1. “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” Meditations
2. “But who is not near death? It is ready for us in all places and at all times.” Letters from a Stoic
3. “You are younger; but what does that matter? There is no fixed count of our years. You do not know where death awaits you; so be ready for it everywhere.” Letters from a Stoic
4. “Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you. While you’re alive and able—be good.” Meditations
5. “Death: something like birth, a natural mystery, elements that split and recombine. Not an embarrassing thing. Not an offense to reason, or our nature.” Meditations
6. “Death has its fixed rule—equitable and unavoidable. Who can complain when he is governed by terms which include everyone? The chief part of equity, however, is equality” Letters from a Stoic
7. “For life is granted to us with the reservation that we shall die; to this end our path leads. Therefore, how foolish it is to fear it, since men simply await that which is sure, but fear only that which is uncertain!” Letters from a Stoic
8. “He says that it is as foolish to fear death as to fear old age; for death follows old age precisely as old age follows youth. He who does not wish to die cannot have wished to live” Letters from a Stoic
9. “Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you. While you’re alive and able—be good.” Meditations
10. “And what dying is—and that if you look at it in the abstract and break down your imaginary ideas of it by logical analysis, you realize that it’s nothing but a process of nature, which only children can be afraid of. (And not only a process of nature but a necessary one.)” Meditations
11. “Think of the multitudes of men doomed to death who will come after you, of the multitudes who will go with you! You would die more bravely, I suppose, in the company of many thousands; and yet there are many thousands, both of men and of animals, who at this very moment, while you are irresolute about death, are breathing their last, in their several ways. But you—did you believe that you would not some day reach the goal towards which you have always been travelling? No journey but has its end.” Letters from a Stoic
12. “Death: something like birth, a natural mystery, elements that split and recombine. Not an embarrassing thing. Not an offense to reason, or our nature.” Meditations
13.“Accepts death in a cheerful spirit, as nothing but the dissolution of the elements from which each living thing is composed. If it doesn’t hurt the individual elements to change continually into one another, why are people afraid of all of them changing and separating? It’s a natural thing. And nothing natural is evil.” Meditations
14. “What is so absurd as to seek death, when it is through fear of death that you have robbed your life of peace” Letters from a Stoic
15. “This is a great accomplishment, Lucilius, and one which needs long practice to learn—to depart calmly when the inevitable hour arrives” Letters from a Stoic
16. ” I remember one day you were handling the well-known commonplace—that we do not suddenly fall on death, but advance towards it by slight degrees; we die every day.” Letters from a Stoic
17. ” Suppose that a god announced that you were going to die tomorrow “or the day after.” Unless you were a complete coward you wouldn’t kick up a fuss about which day it was —what difference could it make? Now recognize that the difference between years from now and tomorrow is just as small.” Meditations
18. “Our lifetime is so brief. And to live it out in these circumstances, among these people, in this body? Nothing to get excited about. Consider the abyss of time past, the infinite future. Three days of life or three generations: what’s the difference?” Meditations
19. “Think about awful-seeming things, especially death, every day. Then you can be grateful to be alive, and you won’t make unreasonable demands.” Enchiridion
20. . “A man has caught the message of wisdom, if he can die as free from care as he was at birth” Letters from a Stoic
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