Memento Mori

"Memento Mori" vs. "Carpe Diem" ... Um... thought-provoking... (see sections from Wikipedia below).

Memento mori is a Latin phrase that may be freely translated as "Remember that you are mortal," "Remember you will die," or "Remember your death". It names a genre of artistic creations that vary widely from one another, but which all share the same purpose, which is to remind people of their own mortality.

In ancient Rome, the phrase is said to have been used on the occasions when a Roman general was parading through the streets of Rome. Standing behind the victorious general was a servant, and he had the task of reminding the general that, though he was up on the peak today, tomorrow was another day. The servant did this by telling the general that he should remember that he was mortal, i.e. "Memento mori", although it is more likely that the servant said "Respice post te! Hominem te memento!" (Look behind you! Remember that you are but a man!) as Tertullian has written in chapter 33 of his work Apologeticus.

Earthly Vanity and Divine Salvation by Hans Memling. This triptych contrasts earthly beauty and luxury with the prospect of death and hell

The genre was little used in classical antiquity; there, the chief thrust of memento mori was the theme of "carpe diem", "seize the day", which would have entailed the advice to "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die." The Christian origin of this quote is from Isaiah 22:13, (from the New American Bible): "Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!" But the thought appears outside the Bible: in the Odes of Horace, with the well known line Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus. (Now is the time to drink, now the time to dance footloose upon the earth.) Horace goes on to explain that now is the time because there will be no drinking or dancing in the afterlife. This is the classic carpe diem theme.