The Ego and Its Own and The False Principle of Our Education Quotes

“Just observe the nation that is defended by devoted patriots. The patriots fall in bloody battle or in the fight with hunger and want; what does the nation care for that? By the manure of their corpses the nation comes to "its bloom"! The individuals have died "for the great cause of the nation," and the nation sends some words of thanks after them and - has the profit of it. I call that a paying kind of egoism.”
― Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own and The False Principle of Our Education

“Now it is clear, God cares only for what is his, busies himself only with himself, thinks only of himself, and has only himself before his eyes; woe to all that is not well pleasing to him. He serves no higher person, and satisfies only himself. His cause is - a purely egoistic cause.”
― Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own and The False Principle of Our Education

“Therefore the Sophists, with courageous sauciness, pronounce the reassuring words, "Don't be bluffed!" and diffuse the rationalistic doctrine, "Use your understanding, your wit, your mind, against everything; it is by having a good and well-drilled understanding that one gets through the world best, provides for himself the best lot, the pleasantest life." Thus they recognize in mind man's true weapon against the world. This is why they lay such stress on dialectic skill, command of language, the art of disputation, etc. They announce that mind is to be used against everything; but they are still far removed from the holiness of the Spirit, for to them it is a means, aweapon, as trickery and defiance serve children for the same purpose; their mind is the unbribable understanding.”
― Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own and The False Principle of Our Education

“Therefore Socrates says: "You must be 'pure-hearted' if your shrewdness is to be valued." At this point begins the second period of Greek liberation of the mind, the period of purity of heart. For the first was brought to a close by the Sophists in their proclaiming the omnipotence of the understanding. But the heart remained worldly-minded, remained a servant of the world, always affected by worldly wishes. This coarse heart was to be cultivated from now on - the era of culture of the heart. But how is the heart to be cultivated? What the understanding; this one side of the mind, has reached - namely, the capability of playing freely with and over every concern - awaits the heart also; everything worldly must come to grief before it, so that at last family, commonwealth, fatherland, and the like, are given up for the sake of the heart, that is, of blessedness, the heart's blessedness.”
― Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own and The False Principle of Our Education

“There is everywhere a great abundance of political, social, ecclesiastical, scientific, artistic, moral and other corpses, and until they are all consumed, the air will not be clean and the breath of living beings will be oppressed.”
― Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own and The False Principle of Our Education