memento mori meaning

Definition & Meaning

Key Takeaway: The Stoic meditation on mortality: remembering that you will die gives life its urgency, clarity, and meaning.

The Stoic meditation on mortality: remembering that you will die gives life its urgency, clarity, and meaning. 'You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.'. This practice appears throughout Stoic literature, most famously in Marcus Aurelius's Meditations and Seneca's Letters -- a source of clarity, urgency, and gratitude, not morbidity.

As the Stoic philosophers — particularly Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations and Seneca in his Letters — wrote, The Stoic meditation on mortality: remembering that you will die gives life its urgency, clarity, and meaning.

— Oriens
2 related wisdom cards
0 related guides
30 questions about Memento Mori

Related Wisdom Cards

Frequently Asked Questions

memento mori meaning

The Stoic meditation on mortality: remembering that you will die gives life its urgency, clarity, and meaning..

memento mori meaning stoic

'You could leave life right now..

fear less clearly stoicism meaning

Let that determine what you do and say and think.'..

Read the Memento Mori overview

Further Reading