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Quote by Max Stirner

“Now do you suppose unselfishness is unreal and nowhere extant? On the contrary, nothing is more ordinary! One may even call it an article of fashion in the civilized world, which is considered so indispensable that, if it cost too much in solid material, people adorn themselves with its counterfeit tinsel and feign it.”

Quote by Max Stirner

Work

The Ego and Its Own

This book delves into the concept of the ego, examining its significance in shaping individual identity and consciousness. It investigates the ego's relationship with the self and the external world, offering insights into the complexities of human psychology and self-awareness. more

Author

Max Stirner
Max Stirner

Max Stirner was a German philosopher born on October 25, 1806, and died on June 26, 1856. His philosophical thoughts revolve around individualism and egoism, which had a profound impact on later existentialism and nihilism. more

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“Then tell me what better I can do,” said Gwendolen, insistently. “Many things. Look on other lives besides your own. See what their troubles are, and how they are borne. Try to care about something in this vast world besides the gratification of small selfish desires. Try to care for what is best in thought and action—something that is good apart from the accidents of your own lot.” For an instant or two Gwendolen was mute. Then, again moving her brow from the glass, she said, “You mean that I am selfish and ignorant.” He met her fixed look in silence before he answered firmly—“You will not go on being selfish and ignorant!” She did not turn away her glance or let her eyelids fall, but a change came over her face—that subtle change in nerve and muscle which will sometimes give a childlike expression even to the elderly: it is the subsidence of self-assertion.”

“Apparently, the highest evolution will not be permitted to creatures capable of what human moral experience has in all eras condemned. Apparently, the highest possible strength is the strength of unselfishness; and power supreme never will be accorded to cruelty or to lust. There may be no gods; but the forces that shape and dissolve all forms of being would seem to be much more exacting than gods. To prove a "dramatic tendency" in the ways of the stars is not possible; but the cosmic process seems nevertheless to affirm the worth of every human system of ethics fundamentally opposed to human egoism.”