Core ideas · Guide 8 of 12

Memento mori: what the Stoics meant by remembering death

Memento mori means “remember that you will die”. For the Stoics it was not a morbid habit but a way to stop wasting time and stop fearing the wrong things. What they said, and how to practise it.

4 min read · Updated September 2026

Memento mori is Latin for “remember that you will die”, and the practice it names runs all through Stoic writing. Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus all return to death again and again, not to dwell on it gloomily but because they found that keeping it in view changed how they lived.

The idea is simple. We behave as though we have unlimited time, so we postpone what matters and waste ourselves on what doesn’t. Remembering that life is short and could end at any moment corrects that.

Why the Stoics thought about death

The first reason is practical: it makes us use our time well. Marcus puts it bluntly:

Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.

Seneca’s version is to treat each day as complete in itself, rather than as a rehearsal for a life that is always about to start:

Therefore, my dear Lucilius, begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.

The second reason is that it frees us from fear. Seneca argues that the fear of death, not death itself, is what does the damage, and that the cure is to think about it often:

But what I really ought to fear is that you will hate this long letter worse than death itself; so I shall stop. Do you, however, always think on death in order that you may never fear it. Farewell.

Epictetus goes further, suggesting that keeping death in view changes our whole attitude to what we want:

Keep before your eyes day by day death and exile, and everything that seems terrible, but most of all death; and then you will never have any abject thought, nor will you yearn for anything beyond measure.

Death is natural

The Stoics did not think death was an evil. It belongs to the same natural order that brought us into being, and fearing it rests on a mistaken judgment. Marcus:

Do not despise death, but be well content with it, since this too is one of those things which nature wills.

And Epictetus, making the point that it is our attitude that frightens us:

For it is not death or hardship that is a fearful thing, but the fear of hardship or death.

This is the same reasoning as the dichotomy of control applied to the biggest thing outside our control. We cannot choose whether we die; we can choose how we think about it and how we live until then.

Death is already happening

Seneca had a striking way of reframing it: we tend to picture death as a single future event, but most of it is already behind us.

For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years lie behind us are in death’s hands.

A life of eighty years, one dot for each. In Seneca’s words, the years behind us are already “in death’s hands”.

Marcus makes a similar point about the changes of a lifetime: childhood, youth and adulthood each end, and we survive those endings without fear.

Turn thy thoughts now to the consideration of thy life, thy life as a child, as a youth, thy manhood, thy old age, for in these also every change was a death. Is this anything to fear?

Does it actually help?

The Stoics’ claim, that thinking about death makes life more precious rather than more miserable, has some modern support. In one study, people asked to reflect vividly on their own death reported more gratitude afterwards than people in a control group.¹ That is one study, and the research is young, but it points in the direction the Stoics described.

How to practise memento mori

The practice does not need to be dramatic. A few approaches:

A morning reminder. Ask: if this were one of my last days, what would I make sure I did, and what would I stop worrying about?
Before a decision. Ask whether you would still care about this at the end of your life. Much of what seems urgent does not survive the question.
With the people you love. Epictetus suggested reminding yourself, even as you kiss your child, that you are kissing a mortal human being. It sounds harsh, but the effect is to make you appreciate them now rather than take them for granted.
Treat each day as a whole. Seneca’s habit: at the end of the day, be able to say that you have lived it.

…let us go to our sleep with joy and gladness; let us say: I have lived; the course which Fortune set for me / Is finished.

The point is never to become anxious or morbid. If the practice makes you fearful, it is being done wrong. Done well, it makes the ordinary day feel less like something to get through and more like something you have.

For more passages, see our Stoic quotes on death. Memento mori pairs naturally with amor fati, the Stoic attitude of accepting whatever happens.

Sources

Araceli Frias, Philip C. Watkins, Amy C. Webber and Jeffrey J. Froh, “Death and Gratitude: Death Reflection Enhances Gratitude”, The Journal of Positive Psychology 6, no. 2 (2011): 154–162. doi:10.1080/17439760.2011.558848.