This time in Monthly Latin about the fact that we human beings, as we learn all sorts of things about the world and ourselves and how we could use that knowledge and our special talents to advance our own interests, we mustn’t at the same time forget to contribute to the greater good of humanity as well.
We are all fallible, all capable of making mistakes or being wrong for the simple reason that no one – quite naturally – can be expert on all facets of life. But bringing forth our contribution to the common pool of knowledge we all get a little further than where we’d get on our own.
In Latin, this idea is expressed in
Non nobis solum nati sumus
i.e. Not (non) Unto Ourselves (nobis) Alone (solum) Are We (sumus) Born (nati)
And who was it that said that again? None other than one of the greatest Roman orators
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC). The above motto is from his most influential philosophical work, On Duties, and reads in full: “Not for us alone are we born; our country, our friends, have a share in us”. Meaning that we all need to “contribute to the general good by an interchange of acts of kindness, by giving and receiving”. Never have we needed to live by that axiom more than today.