The Ego And His Own - Closing

I am owner of my might, and I am so what 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.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 353

As long as you believe in the truth, you do not believe in yourself, and you are a - servant, a - religious man. You alone are the truth, or rather, you are more than the truth, which is nothing at all before you.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 352

I will answer Pilate' question, What is truth? Truth is the free thought, the free idea, the free spirit; truth is what is free from you, what is not your own, what is not in your power. But truth is also the completely unindependent, impersonal, unreal, and incorporeal; truth cannot step forward as you do, cannot move, change, develop; truth awaits and receives everything from you, and itself is only through you; for it exists only - in your head.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 351

Thinking and criticism could be active only starting from themselves, would have to be themselves the presupposition of their activity, as without being they could not be active. But thinking, as a thing presupposed, is a fixed thought, a dogma; thinking and criticism, therefore, can start only from a dogma, from a thought, a fixed idea, a presupposition.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 350

But I distinguish between servile and own criticism. If I criticize under the presupposition of a supreme being, my criticism serves the being and is carried on for its sake: if I am possessed by the belief in a "free State," then everything that has a bearing on it I criticize from the standpoint of whether it is suitable to this State, for I love this State; if I criticize as a pious man, then for me everything falls into the classes of divine and then for me everything falls into the classes of divine and diabolical, and before my criticism nature consists of traces of God or traces of the devil (hence names like Godsgift, Godmount, the Devil's Pulpit), men of believers and unbelievers; if I criticize while believing in man as the "true essence" then for me everything falls primarily into the classes of man and the un-man, etc.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 345

A "rational" freedom of teaching, which recognizes only the conscience of reason," does not bring us to the goal; we require an egoistic freedom of teaching rather, a freedom of teaching for all ownness, wherein Ibecome audible and can announce myself unchecked. That I make myself "audible" this alone is"reason", be I ever so irrational; in my making myself heard, and so bearing myself, others as well as I myself enjoy me, and at the same time consume me.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 342

So freedom of thought exists when I can have all possible thoughts; but the thoughts become property only by not being able to become masters. In the time of freedom of thought, thoughts (ideas) rule; but, if I attain to property in thought, they stand as my creatures.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 339

Free thinking is lunacy, because it is pure movement of the inwardness, of the merely inward man, which guides and regulates the rest of the man. The shaman and the speculative philosopher mark the bottom and top rounds on the ladder of the inward man, the - Mongol. Shaman and philosopher fight with ghosts, demons, spirits, gods.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 334

Nothing may occupy us with which we do not occupy ourselves: he victim of ambition cannot run away from his ambitious plans, nor the God-fearing man from the thought of God; infatuation and possessedness coincide.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 333

Without doubt culture has made me powerful. It has given me power over all motives, over the impulses of my nature as well as over the exactions and violences of the world. I know, and have gained the force for it by culture, that I need not let myself be coerced by any of my appetites, pleasures, emotions, etc.; I am their - master; in like mannes I become, through the sciences and arts, the master of the refractory world, whom sea and earth obey, and to whom even the stars must given account of themselves.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 325

Man is the liberal's supreme being, man the judge of his life, humanity his directions or catechism. God is spirit, but man is the "most perfect spirit," the final result of the long chase after the spirit or of the "searching in the depths of the Godhead", that is, in the depths of the spirit.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 312

For me no one is a person to be respected, not even the fellow-man, but solely, like other beings, an object in which I take an interest or else do not, an interesting or uninteresting object, a usable or unusable person.
And, if I can use him, I doubtless come to an understanding and make myself at one with him, in order, by the agreement, to stregnthen my power, and by combined force to accomplish more than an individual force could effect. In this combination I see nothing whatever but a multiplication of my force, and I retain it only so longas it is my multiplied force. But thus it is a - union.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 297

We have only one relation to each other, that of usableness of utility, of use. We owe each other nothing, for what I seem to owe you I owe at most to myself. If I show you a cheery air in order to cheer you likewise, then your cheeriness to me, and my air serves my wish; to a thousand others, whom I do not aim to cheer, I do not show it.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 292

Selfish love is far distant from unselfish, mystical, or romantic love. One can love everything possible, not merely men, but an "object" in general (wine, one's fatherland, etc.). Love becomes blond and crazy by a must taking it out of my power (infatuation), romantic by a should entering into it, by the "objects" becoming sacred for me, or my becoming bound to it by duty, conscience, oath. Now the object no longer exists for me, but I for it.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 284

The press is my property from the moment when nothing is more to me than myself; for from this moment State, Church, people, society, and the like, cease, because they have to thank for their existence only the disrespect that I have for myself, and with the vanishing of this undervaluation they themselves are extinguished: they exist only when they exist above me exist only as <,i>powers and power-holders.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 283

The press, once seized by the lust for liberty, always wants to grow freer, till at last the writer says to himself, really I am not wholly free till I ask about nothing; and writing is free only when it is my own, dictated to me by no power or authority, by no faith, no dread; the press must not be free - that is too little - it must be mine: - ownness of the pressor property in the press, that is what I will take.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 281

Certainly, the absolute liberty of the press is like every absolute liberty, a nonentity. The press can become free from full many a thing, but always only from what I too am free from. If we make ourselves free from the sacred, if we have become graceless and lawless, out words too will become so.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 268

Restless acquisition does not let us take breath, take a calm enjoyment: we do not get the comfort of our possessions.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 266

You behave egoistically when you respect each other neither as
possessors nor as ragamuffins or workers, but as a part of your
competence, as "useful bodies". Then you will neither
give anything to the possessor, not to him who works, but only
to him whom you require. The north Americans ask
themselves, Do we require a king? and answer, Not a farthing
are he and his work worth to us.

The Ego And His Own - pg. 254

Pauperism is the valuelessness of me, the phenomenon
that I cannot realize value from myself. For this reason State
and pauperism are one and the same. The State does not let me
come to my value, and continues in existence only through my
valuelessness: it is forever intent on getting benefit from
me, exploiting me, turning me to account, using me up, even if
the use it gets from me consists only in my supplying a
proles (proletariat); it wants me to be "its creature".