Max Stirner

"Might is a fine thing, and useful for many purposes; for 'one goes further with a handful of might than with a bagful of right'. You long for freedom? You fools! If you took might, freedom would come of itself. See, he who has might 'stands above the law'. How does this prospect taste to you, you 'law-abiding' people? But you have no taste!"

"The habit of the religious way of thinking has biased our mind so grievously that we are — terrified at ourselves in our nakedness and naturalness; it has degraded us so that we deem ourselves depraved by nature, born devils."

"Now why, if freedom is striven after for love of the I after all — why not choose the I himself as beginning, middle, and end?"

""Freedom" awakens your rage against everything that is not you; "egoism" calls you to joy over yourselves, to self-enjoyment."

"Whether nature gives me a right, or whether God, the people's choice, etc., does so, all of that is the same foreign right, a right that I do not give or take to myself. Thus the Communists say, equal labour entitles man to equal enjoyment. [...] No, equal labour does not entitle you to it, but equal enjoyment alone entitles you to equal enjoyment. Enjoy, then you are entitled to enjoyment. But, if you have laboured and let the enjoyment be taken from you, then – ‘it serves you right.’ If you take the enjoyment, it is your right; if, on the contrary, you only pine for it without laying hands on it, it remains as before, a, ‘well-earned right’ of those who are privileged for enjoyment. It is their right, as by laying hands on it would become your right."

"For the state it is indispensable that nobody have an own will; if one had, the state would have to exclude (lock up, banish, etc.) this one; if all had, they would do away with the state. (...) The own will of me is the state's destroyer; it is therefore denounced by the state as 'self-will'. Own will and the state are powers in deadly hostility, between which no 'perpetual peace' is possible. As long as the state asserts itself, it represents own will, its ever-hostile opponent, as unreasonable, evil; and the latter lets itself be talked into believing this."

"Man with the great M is only an ideal, the species only something thought of."

"It would be foolish to assert that there is no power above mine. Only the attitude that I take toward it will be quite another than that of the religious age: I shall be the enemy of every higher power, while religion teaches us to make it our friend and be humble toward it."

"The State’s behavior is violence, and it calls its violence “law”; that of the individual, “crime.”"

"Liberty of the people is not my liberty!"

"A people cannot be free otherwise than at the individual's expense; for it is not the individual that is the main point in this liberty, but the people. The freer the people, the more bound the individual; the Athenian people, precisely at its freest time, created ostracism, banished the atheists, poisoned the most honest thinker."

"The tiger that assails me is in the right, and I who strike him down am also in the right. I defend against him not my right, but myself."

"Everything sacred is a tie, a fetter."

"The republic is nothing whatever but – absolute monarchy; for it makes no difference whether the monarch is called prince or people, both being a 'majesty'."

"If the church had deadly sins, the state has capital crimes; if the one had heretics, the other has traitors; the one ecclesiastical penalties, the other criminal penalties; the one inquisitorial processes, the other fiscal; in short, there sins, here crimes, there inquisition and here – inquisition. Will the sanctity of the state not fall like the church's? The awe of its laws, the reverence for its highness, the humility of its 'subjects', will this remain? Will the 'saint's' face not be stripped of its adornment?"

"History seeks for man: but he is I, you, we. Sought as a mysterious essence, as the divine, first as God, then as man (humanity, humaneness, and mankind), he is found as the individual, the finite, the unique one."

"But let the individual man lay claim to ever so many rights because Man or the concept man ‘entitles’ him to them, because his being man does it: what do I care for his right and his claim? If he has his right only from Man and does not have it from me, then for me he has no right. His life, for example, counts to me only for what it is worth to me. I respect neither a so-called right of property (or his claim to tangible goods) nor yet his right to the ‘sanctuary of his inner nature’ (or his right to have the spiritual goods and divinities, his gods, remain un-aggrieved). His goods, the sensuous as well as the spiritual, are mine, and I dispose of them as proprietor, in the measure of my — might."

"If religion has put forward the proposition that we are all of us sinners, I set another against it: we are all of us perfect! Because, in each moment, we are all we can be, and never need to be more."

"Everything over which I have might that cannot be torn from me remains my property; well, then let might decide about property, and I will expect everything from my might! Alien might, might that I leave to another, makes me an owned slave: then let my own might make me an owner. Let me then withdraw the might that I have conceded to others out of ignorance regarding the strength of my own might! Let me say to myself, what my might reaches to is my property; and let me claim as property everything that I feel myself strong enough to attain, and let me extend my actual property as far as I entitle, that is, empower, myself to take."

"What matters the party to me? I shall find enough anyhow who unite with me without swearing allegiance to my flag."

"One is not worthy to have what one, through weakness, lets be taken from him; one is not worthy of it because one is not capable of it."

"With competition is connected less the intention to do the thing best than the intention to make it as profitable, as productive, as possible. Hence people study to get into the civil service (study in order to get a well-paid job), study cringing and flattery, routine and 'acquaintance with business', work 'for appearance'. Hence, while it is apparently a matter of doing 'good service', in truth only a 'good business' and earning of money are looked out for. The job is done only ostensibly for the job's sake, but in fact on account of the gain that it yields. One would indeed prefer not to be censor, but one wants to be – advanced; one would like to judge, administer, etc., according to his best convictions, but one is afraid of transfer or even dismissal; one must, above all things – live."

"I love men too, not merely individuals, but every one. But I love them with the consciousness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy, I love because loving is natural to me, because it pleases me. I know no 'commandment of love'."

"Every love to which there clings but the smallest speck of obligation is an unselfish love, and, so far as this speck reaches, a possessedness. He who believes that he owes the object of his love anything loves romantically or religiously."

"Do I write out of love to men? No, I write because I want to procure for my thoughts an existence in the world; and, even if I foresaw that these thoughts would deprive you of your rest and your peace, even if I saw the bloodiest wars and the fall of many generations springing up from this seed of thought – I would nevertheless scatter it. Do with it what you will and can, that is your affair and does not trouble me."

"A word of honour, an oath, is one only for him whom I entitle to receive it; he who forces me to it obtains only a forced, a hostile word, the word of a foe, whom one has no right to trust; for the foe does not give us the right."

"An appeal to men's self-sacrificing disposition and self-renouncing love ought at least to have lost its seductive plausibility when, after an activity of thousands of years, it has left nothing behind but the – misery of today. Why then still fruitlessly expect self-sacrifice to bring us better times? Why not rather hope for them from usurpation? Salvation comes no longer from the giver, the bestower, the loving one, but from the taker, the appropriator (usurper), the owner. Communism, and, consciously, egoism-reviling humanism, still count on love."

"All right, men are as they should be, can be. What should they be? Surely not more than they can be! And what can they be? Not more, again, than they – can, than they have the competence, the force, to be. But this they really are, because what they are not, they are incapable of being; for to be capable means – really to be. One is not capable for anything that one really is not; one is not capable of anything that one does not really do. Could a man blinded by cataract see? Oh, yes, if he had his cataract successfully removed. But now he cannot see because he does not see. Possibility and reality always coincide. One can do nothing that one does not, as one does nothing that one cannot."

"Get away from me with your 'philanthropy'! Creep in, you philanthropist, into the 'dens of vice', linger awhile in the throng of the great city: will you not everywhere find sin, and sin, and again sin? Will you not wail over corrupt humanity, not lament at the monstrous egoism? Will you see a rich man without finding him pitiless and 'egoistic'? Perhaps you already call yourself an atheist, but you remain true to the Christian feeling that a camel will sooner go through a needle's eye than a rich man not be an 'un-man'. How many do you see anyhow that you would not throw into the 'egoistic mass'? What, therefore, has your philanthropy (love of man) found? Nothing but unlovable men! And where do they all come from? From you, from your philanthropy! You brought the sinner with you in your head, therefore you found him, therefore you inserted him everywhere. Do not call men sinners, and they are not: you alone are the creator of sinners; you, who fancy that you love men, are the very one to throw them into the mire of sin, the very one to divide them into vicious and virtuous, into men and un-men, the very one to befoul them with the spittle of your possessedness; for you love not men, but man. But I tell you, you have never seen a sinner, you have only – dreamed of him."

"Look upon yourself as more powerful than they give you out for, and you have more power; look upon yourself as more, and you have more."

"That the individual is of himself a world's history, and possesses his property in the rest of the world's history, goes beyond what is Christian. To the Christian the world's history is the higher thing, because it is the history of Christ or 'man'; to the egoist only his history has value, because he wants to develop only himself not the mankind-idea, not God's plan, not the purposes of Providence, not liberty, and the like. He does not look upon himself as a tool of the idea or a vessel of God, he recognizes no calling, he does not fancy that he exists for the further development of mankind and that he must contribute his mite to it, but he lives himself out, careless of how well or ill humanity may fare thereby."

"I am owner of my might, and I am so when I know myself as unique. In the unique one the owner himself returns into his creative nothing, of which he is born. Every higher essence above me, be it God, be it man, weakens the feeling of my uniqueness, and pales only before the sun of this consciousness. If I concern myself for myself, the unique one, then my concern rests on its transitory, mortal creator, who consumes himself, and I may say: All things are nothing to me."

"People is the name of the body, State of the spirit, of that ruling person that has hitherto suppressed me."

"Human or general needs can be satisfied through society; for satisfaction of unique needs you must do some seeking. A friend and a friendly service, or even an individual's service, society cannot procure you. And yet you will every moment be in need of such a service, and on the slightest occasions require somebody who is helpful to you. Therefore do not rely on society, but see to it that you have the wherewithal to — purchase the fulfilment of your wishes."

""Was sind unsere geistreichen und gebildeten Subjekte grösstentheils? Hohnlächelnde Sklavenbesitzer und selber"

"Was soll nicht alles Meine Sache sein! Vor allem die gute Sache, dann die Sache Gottes, die Sache der Menschheit, der Wahrheit, der Freiheit, der Humanität, der Gerechtigkeit; ferner die Sache Meines Volkes, Meines Fürsten, Meines Vaterlandes; endlich gar die Sache des Geistes und tausend andere Sachen. Nur Meine Sache soll niemals Meine Sache sein. „Pfui über den Egoisten, der nur an sich denkt!”"

"Von deinem und eurem Eigenthum trete Ich nicht scheu zurück, sondern sehe es stets als m e i n Eigenthum an, woran Ich nichts zu „respectiren“ brauche. Thuet doch desgleichen mit dem, was Ihr mein Eigenthum nennt!"

""Ohne Verbrechen kein Staat: die sittliche Welt"

"Mündig sind die Jungen dann, wenn sie zwitschern wie die Alten; man hetzt sie durch die Schule, damit sie die alte Leier lernen, und haben sie diese inne, so erklärt man sie für mündig."

"Mit dem Ideal der „absoluten Freiheit” wird dasselbe Unwesen getrieben, wie mit allem Absoluten, [...]."

"Man sagt von Gott: „Namen nennen Dich nicht”. Das gilt von Mir: kein Begriff drückt Mich aus, nichts, was man als mein Wesen angiebt, erschöpft Mich; es sind nur Namen. Gleichfalls sagt man von Gott er sei vollkommen und habe keinen Beruf, nach Vollkommenheit zu streben. Auch das gilt allein von Mir."

"In der Gesellschaft, der Societät, kann höchstens die menschliche Forderung befriedigt werden, indeß die egoistische stets zu kurz kommen muß."

"Ich setze Mich nicht voraus, weil Ich Mich jeden Augenblick überhaupt erst setze oder schaffe, und nur dadurch Ich bin, daß Ich nicht vorausgesetzt, sondern gesetzt bin, und wiederum nur in dem Moment gesetzt, wo Ich Mich setzt, d. h. Ich bin Schöpfer und Geschöpf in Einem."

"Gott und die Menschheit haben ihre Sache auf Nichts gestellt, auf nichts als auf Sich. Stelle Ich denn meine Sache gleichfalls auf Mich, der Ich so gut wie Gott das Nichts von allem Andern, der Ich mein Alles, der Ich der Einzige bin."

"Fort denn mit jeder Sache, die nicht ganz und gar Meine Sache ist! Ihr meint, Meine Sache müsse wenigstens die „gute Sache” sein? Was gut, was böse! Ich bin ja selber Meine Sache, und Ich bin weder gut noch böse. Beides hat für Mich keinen Sinn."

"Doch das Gefängnis betritt man gewöhnlich nicht freiwillig und bleibt auch selten freiwillig darin, sondern hegt das egoistische Verlangen nach Freiheit."

"Die Selbständigkeit der Partei bedingt die Unselbständigkeit der Parteiglieder."

"Die Revolution zielte auf neue Einrichtungen, die Empörung führt dahin, Uns nicht mehr einrichten zu lassen, sondern Uns selbst einzurichten, und setzt auf „Institutionen” keine glänzende Hoffnung."

"Der moralische Einfluß nimmt da seinen Anfang, wo die Demüthigung beginnt, ja er ist nichts anderes, als diese Demüthigung selbst, die Brechung und Beugung des Muthes zur Demuth herab."

"Der Fanatismus ist gerade bei den Gebildeten zu Hause; denn gebildet ist der Mensch, so weit er sich für Geistiges interessiert, und Interesse für Geistiges ist eben, wen es lebendig ist, Fanatismus und muß es sein; es ist ein fanatisches Interesse für das Heilige (fanum)."