DE OFFICIIS - M. TVLLI CICERONIS

Liber Primus

[55] Magnum est enim eadem habere monumenta maiorum,

For it means much to share in common the same family traditions

eisdem uti sacris, sepulchra habere communia.

the same forms of domestic worship, and the same ancestral tombs.

Sed omnium societatum nulla praestantior est, nulla firmior,

But of all the bonds of fellowship, there is none more noble, none more powerful

quam cum viri boni moribus similes sunt familiaritate coniuncti;

than when good men of congenial character are joined in intimate friendship

illud enim honestum, quod saepe dicimus, etiam si in alio cernimus,

for really, if we discover in another that moral goodness on which I dwell so much,

[tamen] nos movet atque illi in quo id inesse videtur amicos facit.]

it attracts us and makes us friends to the one in whose character it seems to dwell.

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