DE OFFICIIS - M. TVLLI CICERONIS

Liber Primus

[22] Sed quoniam, ut praeclare scriptum est a Platone,

But since, as Plato has admirably expressed it,

non nobis solum nati sumus

we are not born for ourselves alone,

ortusque nostri partem patria vindicat, partem amici,

but our country claims a share of our being, and our friends a share;

atque, ut placet Stoicis, quae in terris gignantur, ad usum hominum omnia creari,

and since, as the Stoics hold, everything that the earth produces is created for man's use;

homines autem hominum causa esse generatos,

and as men, too, are born for the sake of men,

ut ipsi inter se aliis alii prodesse possent,

that they may be able mutually to help one another;

in hoc naturam debemus ducem sequi,

in this direction we ought to follow Nature as our guide

communes utilitates in medium adferre, mutatione officiorum,

to contribute to the general good by an interchange of acts of kindness,

dando accipiendo, tum artibus, tum opera, tum facultatibus

by giving and receiving, and thus by our skill, our industry, and our talents

devincire hominum inter homines societatem.

to cement human society more closely together, man to man.

Source: Marcus Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. Translated by Walter Miller. Loeb Edition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1913. http://www.stoics.com