Memento Mori 9

Hans Leinberger, Figure of Death, Memento Mori (c. 1620) 

Memento Mori 8

Andrea Previtali, Memento Mori (c. 1502) 

Hic decor hec forma manet, hec lex omnibus unam.  

"This beauty endures only in this form, this law is the same for everyone." 

Memento Mori 7

Anonymous German, Memento Mori (c. 1750) 

Gedenck O Mensch Sich wer Du bist,  
Wie ungleich Dott und Lebendig ist, 

"Remember, O Man, Look who you are, 

How unequal Dead and Alive are." 

Memento Mori 6

Anonymous English, Memento Mori alarm clock (c. 1850) 

Memento Mori 5

Anonymous French, Pendant with a Monk and Death (17th century) 

Memento Mori 4

Philips Gijsels, Memento Mori with a Skull and Crossbones (c. 1650) 

 

Allegory of Life

Guido Cagnacci, Allegory of Life (c. 1650) 

Memento Mori 3

Valentin Wagner, Vanitas Allegory (1652) 

Memento Mori 2

Memento Mori 1

Gravestone of James Bailie, St. Cuthbert's Churchyard, Edinburgh (1746) 

Transience

Jan van den Hoecke, Allegory of Transience (c. 1640) 

Death and the Maiden

Marianne Stokes, Death and the Maiden (1908) 

Maxims of Goethe 35

It is much easier to put yourself in the position of a mind taken up with the most absolute error, than of one which mirrors to itself half-truths. 

IMAGE: Lukas Furtenagel, The Painter Hans Burgkmair and his Wife, Anna (1529) 

Stoic Snippets 227

Acquire the contemplative way of seeing how all things change into one another, and constantly attend to it, and exercise yourself about this part of philosophy. 

For nothing is so much adapted to produce magnanimity. 

Such a man has put off the body, and as he sees that he must, no one knows how soon, go away from among men and leave everything here, he gives himself up entirely to just doing in all his actions, and in everything else that happens he resigns himself to the Universal Nature. 

But as to what any man shall say or think about him or do against him, he never even thinks of it, being himself contented with these two things—with acting justly in what he now does, and being satisfied with what is now assigned to him. 

And he lays aside all distracting and busy pursuits, and desires nothing else than to accomplish the straight course through the law, and by accomplishing the straight course to follow God. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.11 

Death the Leveller

"Death the Leveller" 

James Shirley (1596-1666) 

The glories of our blood and state

Are shadows, not substantial things;

There is no armor against fate;

Death lays his icy hand on kings:

Sceptre and Crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crooked scythe and spade. 

Some men with swords may reap the field,

And plant fresh laurels where they kill:

But their strong nerves at last must yield;

They tame but one another still:

Early or late

They stoop to fate,

And must give up their murmuring breath

When they, pale captives, creep to death. 

The garlands wither on your brow,

Then boast no more your mighty deeds!

Upon Death's purple altar now

See where the victor-victim bleeds.

Your heads must come

To the cold tomb:

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet and blossom in their dust. 

IMAGE: Clement Auguste Andrieux, Allegory of Death (c. 1860) 

The Doings of Death 12

William Strang, The Doings of Death 12: Death the Mourner (1901) 

The Doings of Death 11

William Strang, The Doings of Death 11: Death the Comforter (1901) 

The Doings of Death 10

William Strang, The Doings of Death 10: Death and the Lover (1901) 

The Doings of Death 9

William Strang, The Doings of Death 9: Death and the Artist (1901) 

The Doings of Death 8

William Strang, The Doings of Death 8: Death on the Barricades (1901)