We are not born for ourselves alone but for the whole world.
Mosman Prep’s Founding Headmaster, Mr Alfred Yarnold, chose the School motto from the Roman writer and philosopher Cicero.
The motto reflects an ethic of obligation and service to others. It places a strong emphasis on developing a sense of community, which has been a feature of Mosman Prep from its establishment through to the present day.
A fuller translation of the motto, which deepens an understanding of its meaning, can be seen below.
But since, as Plato has admirably expressed it, we are not born for ourselves alone, but our country claims a share of our being, and our friends a share; and since, as the Stoics hold, everything that the earth produces is created for mankind’s use; and as we, too are born for the sake of others, that they may be able to follow Nature as our guide, to contribute to the general good by an interchange of acts of kindness, by giving and receiving, and thus by our skill, our industry, and our talents to cement human society more closely together, mankind to mankind.
A motto may or may not reflect the essence of the organisation that has adopted it. At Mosman Prep, the three short Latin words Non Nobis Solum continue to describe the ethos that the School has aimed to instil in its students for more than a century.
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