Non nobis solum nati sumus. (Not for ourselves alone are we born.)

The maxim is associated with Cicero’s ethical and political thought in the late Roman Republic, where he argued that human beings are naturally social and that virtue is expressed through duties to family, friends, and the commonwealth. Cicero repeatedly stresses that individuals are not self-sufficient moral units but parts of a larger civic and cosmic order, an idea he draws from Stoic and broader Hellenistic philosophy. The line is commonly cited as a succinct statement of civic responsibility and public-spiritedness, fitting Cicero’s career as a statesman and orator who defended the ideal of service to the res publica amid intense factional conflict.

“Not for ourselves alone are we born” frames human life as inherently relational: our talents, time, and moral agency carry obligations beyond private advantage. In Cicero’s moral vocabulary, this points to officium (duty) and to the idea that justice and beneficence are central virtues because they bind communities together. The aphorism rejects narrow self-interest and treats participation in shared life—helping others, sustaining institutions, and contributing to the common good—as a core purpose of existence. Its enduring appeal lies in how it compresses a civic ethic into a single sentence: personal flourishing is inseparable from responsibility to others.

Non nobis solum nati sumus ortusque nostri partem patria vindicat, partem amici. (Not for ourselves alone are we born; our country claims a share of our birth, and our friends a share.)