Stoicism teaches self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions. The philosophy holds that thinking clearly allows one to understand the universal reason (logos). With this approach they sought to understand death, the greatest fear many people have.
With a handful of my favourite Stoic quotes, we can understand what the Stoics really thought about death. These ancient philosophers share great insights on what death really is and why shouldn’t fear it.
We can even some of these quotes to gain a new perspective on life and live more virtuously.
See Death for What it is
The first topic the Stoics taught was to see death for what it really is. We often have this idea in modern society that youth is perfection and death is to be feared. But like the Stoics preached generally, things outside our control cannot be good or bad.
Only things within our control can be deemed good or bad. For this reason, it’s important to accept death as a natural part of life. Amor fati.
What is death? A scary mask. Take it off – see, it doesn’t bite. Eventually, body and soul will have to separate, just as they existed separately before we were born. So why be upset if it happens now? If it isn’t now, it’s later.
— Epictetus
We often think of death as one of the worst things that can happen to someone. However, that is simply life. We will all die one day. Why should you worry if it happens now?
We should take a step back from our worst fears and ask ourselves, “What is really so bad about this?” The Stoics used the concept of katalepsis to neutralise their impressions.
Every person will die at some point, so why worry in any moment for something that is destined to come? We can internalise this idea by developing cognitive distance with the practice of Stoic mindfulness.
Let death and exile, and all other things which appear terrible be daily before your eyes, but chiefly death, and you will never entertain any abject thought, nor too eagerly covet anything.
— Epictetus
Epictetus speaks of exile as something that actually happened to him. Having this experience helps put smaller things in life into perspective. If you imagine the “worst things” everyday, anything else that at first seemed terrible will not scare you so much.
Conquering the Fear of Death
As a society, we’ve decided to fear death. Though we consider ourselves wholly rational beings, we cower from the only thing in life that is fully guaranteed.
The Stoics had to deal with the same emotional reactions towards death. Unlike most people, they tackled their fear head-on and tried to rationalise these feelings. Once they did so, they could free themselves from the shackles of this statistical certainty.
I cannot escape death, but at least I can escape the fear of it.
— Epictetus
As Epictetus simplifies here, no person is ever able to escape death. All we can do is accept our fate and calm our fear of the inevitability.
Accept 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.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.17
We often think about death as “the end”. We do not consider our mind and body as separate things that are constantly changing. Death is a natural occurrence, and we can always live more in accordance with nature.
What upsets people is not things themselves but their judgments about the things. For example, death is nothing dreadful (or else it would have appeared dreadful to Socrates), but instead the judgment about death that it is dreadful—that is what is dreadful. So, when we are thwarted or upset or distressed, let us never blame someone else but rather ourselves, that is, our own judgments. An uneducated person accuses others when he is doing badly; a partly educated person accuses himself, an educated person accuses neither someone else nor himself.
— Epictetus
Death is not a problem, because it is outside our control. Our judgment of things outside of our control is the real problem. Our own actions and judgments are the only thing in our control – therefore, those are the only things that can be good or bad.
Using Death to gain Life Perspective
The Stoics also used death as a means to live a better life. Death can bring much-needed perspective to motivate us to do what we know is important.
Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Reflect every morning and evening. Time will not seems so short if you make sure check in with yourself everyday
Don’t behave as if you are destined to live forever. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good. Now.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.17
We cannot keep living everday, assuming that we will live forever. We must all expect to die and make the most of the lives we have today.
Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what’s left and live it properly. What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.56
Remember also that each man lives only the present moment: The rest of the time is either spent and gone, or is quite unknown. It is a very little time which each man lives, and in a small corner of the earth; and the longest surviving fame is but short, and this conveyed through a succession of poor mortals, each presently a-dying; men who neither knew themselves, nor the persons long since dead.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.10
All we have is our experience in each moment. Our lives are small in the grand scheme of things and any possible fame we may hope to achieve is bound to be short-lived. We can take these examples from people today: they do not know themselves, nor the people who have been dead for a long time.
Let the past go and focus on the now. You are dead, what you did or didn’t do doesn’t matter. Take what’s left of you – your essence now, and live well. Don’t worry about the past or future. Those things are gone, imaginary, speculative. “Life”, as in “The story of a given span of one human life” is exactly that: a story. This quote is saying to kill that story. Be dead, presently. Without the story there is nothing left but to respond to the present’s calling, always with a clean slate, always free from the weight of the remembered past and imagined future. There is a vibrancy to present action when it is free from the dead past.
Living with Virtue
As death is the only certainty in life, we should focus our energy on living a good life. The Stoics defined “a good life” as following the four Stoic virtues: Wisdom, Justice, Courage & Self-control. Rather than worry about problems, we should instead aim to live a life worthy of an honourable death.
That man lives badly who does not know how to die well.
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Everyone dies, so our ultimate goal should be to die well. This, we can only do by living to our fullest.
You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Seneca points out the difference between humans’ fear and desire. The same men who crave immortality fear death. It is better to be realistic and courageous than to desire and fear the inevitable.
No evil is honorable: but death is honorable; therefore death is not evil.
— Zeno of Citium
In this quote, Zeno (the founder of Stoicism) uses logic to prove that death is not evil. Because death is honourable and nothing honourable can be evil, death is not evil. It is only a part of nature that we must accept.
You can discard most of the junk that clutters your mind — things that exist only there. And you will immediately make vast space for yourself by grasping the whole universe in your thought, by contemplating the eternity of time, and by reflecting on the speed with which things change — each part of everything, the brief gap from birth to death, the infinite time before, and the equally infinite time that follows.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.32
Again, we must contemplate the scope of the universe to put trivial things into perspective. The brief gap between birth and death is the only things we will ever experience.
Marcus Aurelius means that once we consider the amount of time that exists, both before and after our own lives, we can begin to see the truth more objectively than our subjective experience.
We cannot cling to ideas of stagnation, because everything will change in time.
Death in a Stoic Nutshell
As an practical philosophy, the Stoics always aimed to view the world through a rational lens. In this vein, they saw death as completely natural, a simple return to nature. It is the value-judgments we place on death that make it seem as terrible as we think.
With the passages in this post, we can get a better idea of how the Stoics rationalised death. First, they sought to see death for what it really was. Next, they used this insight to conquer their fear of death. Death would even be used to put life into larger perspective so they could live more virtuously.
Death is something that each and every one of us has thought about at some point in our lives. I’ve found this usually happens after the death of a loved one. I personally find the Stoic approach useful in curbing my most negative and destructive feelings about “the end”. We only have so much time and it is better to live with this in mind than to wake up one day and feel life has simply passed us by.
With these Stoic insights, we can take a little ancient perspective into our daily actions and live more virtuously. Start conquering death with your mind and practice today.