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Who really said it

Let us see to it that the recollection of those whom we have lost becomes a pleasant memory to us

Written by Seneca the Younger c. 4 BC – AD 65 · Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist & adviser to Nero
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Genuine, and locatable to the sentence. It opens §4 of Letter 63, “On Grief for Lost Friends,” in Seneca’s Moral Letters to Lucilius — in Latin, Id agamus ut iucunda nobis amissorum fiat recordatio. The familiar English wording is Richard M. Gummere’s, from his 1917 Loeb Classical Library translation; Seneca wrote no English, so the sentence people share is the translator’s phrasing of Seneca’s thought.

Last verified 4 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Let us see to it that the recollection of those whom we have lost becomes a pleasant memory to us” Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 63 ("On Grief for Lost Friends"), §4 — translated by Richard M. Gummere, Loeb Classical Library, 1917. Latin: "Id agamus ut iucunda nobis amissorum fiat recordatio." Verified via quotle.info

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Provenance

The source, located

Work
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius)
Passage
Letter 63, “On Grief for Lost Friends,” §4
Latin
Id agamus ut iucunda nobis amissorum fiat recordatio.
Translation
Richard M. Gummere, Loeb Classical Library, vol. 1 — London: Heinemann; New York: Putnam’s, 1917

Let us see to it that the recollection of those whom we have lost becomes a pleasant memory to us. No man reverts with pleasure to any subject which he will not be able to reflect upon without pain. So too it cannot but be that the names of those whom we have loved and lost come back to us with a sort of sting; but there is a pleasure even in this sting. Letter 63, §4

Gummere’s 1917 English. The letter is addressed to Lucilius on the death of his friend Flaccus; §5 gives the same idea in the words of Seneca’s teacher Attalus.

Scanned 1917 Loeb volume
Read Gummere’s first volume at the Internet Archive
Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 63 on Wikisource

How this was verified

Public domain

Two layers, both clear. Seneca’s Latin, written around AD 62–65, has been in the public domain for centuries. The English wording quoted here is Richard M. Gummere’s translation, first published in 1917 ↗ — before 1931, so it too is public domain in the United States. Later translations of the same passage are a separate matter and may still be in copyright.

This reflects the original work, which is public domain. If your exact English wording comes from a specific modern translation, that translation may itself still be under copyright — check the edition you quote.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What usually goes wrong with this one

The attribution is right — this really is Seneca. What travels badly is everything around it: the wording is a translator’s, and the sentence is almost never carried with the source that would let anyone check it.

Richard M. Gummere, translator translation, not transcription

Seneca wrote Id agamus ut iucunda nobis amissorum fiat recordatio (Latin text, Epistula LXIII.4 ↗). The 28 English words everyone shares are Gummere’s rendering, first published in the Loeb Classical Library in 1917 (edition record ↗). Other translators phrase it differently; none of the phrasings is Seneca’s.

Quote aggregators unsourced

Goodreads, for instance, lists the line under “Seneca, Complete Works of Seneca the Younger” with no letter number, translator or page ↗ — which is a pointer to roughly a thousand pages rather than a citation.

Condolence-card usage argument removed

Lifted on its own it reads as gentle encouragement. In place it is the premise of a hard-edged Stoic argument: the very next sentence is “No man reverts with pleasure to any subject which he will not be able to reflect upon without pain” (Letter 63 ↗) — i.e. make the memory bearable or you will stop visiting it at all.

Bottom line: genuinely Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 63, §4 ↗ — quoted in English in Richard M. Gummere’s 1917 Loeb translation.

Context

Why Seneca wrote it

Letter 63 is a condolence note. Seneca opens it bluntly — “I am grieved to hear that your friend Flaccus is dead, but I would not have you sorrow more than is fitting” — and then argues his way toward this sentence. His claim is not that grief should be suppressed but that it should be metabolised: the memory of a dead friend is a thing you have to make survivable, because, as the very next line says, no one willingly returns to a thought that can only be thought in pain.

To make the point stick he hands the argument to his own teacher. Attalus, Seneca reports, used to say that remembering lost friends is pleasant the way some fruits are agreeably sour, or the way the bitterness of a very old wine is exactly what you enjoy in it — and that once enough time has passed, the part that stung burns off and only the pleasure reaches you. It is one of the least clinical passages in Stoic writing, and Seneca closes the letter by admitting he mourned a friend of his own badly.

The remembrance of lost friends is pleasant in the same way that certain fruits have an agreeably acid taste.

Read the full story

The letter belongs to the Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, the sequence of 124 surviving letters Seneca wrote in the last two or three years of his life, roughly AD 62–65. They are addressed to Lucilius Junior, procurator of Sicily, but they read as open letters — essays with a named recipient rather than private correspondence.

Grief was not an incidental topic for Seneca. Later in the same letter he names Annaeus Serenus as someone whose death he himself mourned deeply, which is why the advice arrives with an apology attached rather than as a lecture.

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Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Mortality Gratitude Hope

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Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 63 (full text)en.wikisource.org

Gummere’s English translation of the whole letter, with the quoted sentence at §4.
Latin text of Epistulae LXIII–LXIXyorku.ca

The Latin original: “Id agamus ut iucunda nobis amissorum fiat recordatio.”
Ad Lucilium epistulae morales, vol. 1 (1917) — scanarchive.org

Scan of the Heinemann/Loeb first volume of Gummere’s translation, 1917.
Bibliographic record for the 1917 Loeb volumeen.wikisource.org

Confirms translator, publishers, year and volume for the edition this wording comes from.
Seneca the Younger on Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Sourced quotations, including a subsection for Letter LXIII.
Epistulae Morales ad Luciliumen.wikipedia.org

Background on the letter collection, its dating and Gummere’s three-volume translation.

The author

About Seneca the Younger

Seneca the Younger

c. 4 BC – AD 65 · Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist & adviser to Nero

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Stoic philosopher, tragedian and Roman statesman who became Nero’s tutor in AD 49 and his adviser from 54 to 62. Forced out of public life, he spent his last years writing the Epistulae Morales ad Lucilius — 124 surviving letters composed roughly between AD 62 and 65, addressed to Lucilius Junior, then procurator of Sicily, but plainly written for a wider readership. In AD 65 he was implicated in the Pisonian conspiracy against Nero and ordered to take his own life.

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Cite this

Primary source

Seneca. Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, Volume I. Translated by Richard M. Gummere. Loeb Classical Library. London: William Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1917. Letter 63, “On Grief for Lost Friends,” §4.

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Let us see to it that the recollection of those whom we have lost becomes a pleasant memory to us’?” Last verified 4 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/let-us-see-to-it-that-the-recollection-of-those-whom-we/

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