22 Quotes & Sayings By Max Stirner

Born in 1806, Max Stirner, known as the "philosopher of the individual," developed a radical theory of the self and its relationship to society. He was a philosopher whose work has exerted a profound influence on existentialism and postmodernism. His philosophy is characterized by an extreme individualism that rejects all societal ties or constraints. He has been described as one of the most influential thinkers of the nineteenth century Read more

Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is...
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Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self. Max Stirner
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Our whole education system is calculated to produce *feelings* in us, impart them to us, instead of leaving their production to ourselves however they may turn out... Thus stuffed with imparted feelings, we appear before the bar of majority and are 'pronounced of age." Our equipment consists of "elevating feelings, lofty thoughts, inspiring maxims, eternal principles. Max Stirner
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But, even granted that doubts, raised in the course of time against the tenants of the Christian faith, have long since robbed you of faith in the immortality of your spirit, you have nevertheless left one tenant undisturbed, and still ingenuously adhere to the one truth, that the spirit is your better part, and that the spiritual has greater claims on you than anything else Max Stirner
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It is possible I can make very little of myself; but this little is everything, and better than what I allow to be made out of me by the might of others, by the training of custom, religion, the laws, the State. Max Stirner
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Liberate yourself as far as you can, and you have done your part; for it is not given to every one to break through all limits, or, more expressively, not to every one is that a limit which is a limit for the rest. Consequently, do not tire yourself with toiling at the limits of others.. He who overturns one of his limits may have shown others the way and the means; the overturning of their limits remains their affair. Max Stirner
The state calls its own violence law, but that of...
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The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime. Max Stirner
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You call me the unhuman, " it might say to him, "and so I really am–for you; but I am so only because you bring me into opposition to the human, and I could despise myself only so long as I let myself be hypnotized into this opposition. I was contemptible because I sought my 'better self' outside me; I was the unhuman because I dreamed of the 'human'; I resembled the pious who hunger for their 'true self' and always remain 'poor sinners'; I thought of myself only in comparison to another; enough, I was not all in all, was not–unique.[102] But now I cease to appear to myself as the unhuman, cease to measure myself and let myself be measured by man, cease to recognize anything above me: consequently–adieu, humane critic! I only have been the unhuman, am it now no longer, but am the unique, yes, to your loathing, the egoistic; yet not the egoistic as it lets itself be measured by the human, humane, and unselfish, but the egoistic as the–unique. Max Stirner
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Where the world comes in my way - and it comes in my way everywhere - I consume it to quiet the hunger of my egoism. For me you are nothing but - my food, even as I too am fed upon and turned to use by you. 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 is of consequence to me, and my air serves my wish; to a thousand others, whom I do not aim to cheer, I do not show it. Max Stirner
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But who is this self that is to be renounced and to have no benefit? It seems that *you* yourself are supposed to be it. And for whose benefit is unselfish self-renunciation recommended to you? Again, for *your* benefit and behoof, only through that unselfishness you are procuring your "true benefit." You are to benefit *yourself*, and yet you are not to seek *your* benefit Max Stirner
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Here we come upon the old, old craze of the world, which has not yet learned to do without clericalism--that to live and work *for an idea*is man's calling, and according to the faithfulness its fulfilment his *human worth* is measured Max Stirner
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If i cherish you because I hold you dear, because in you my heart finds nourishment, my need satisfaction, then it is not done for the sake of a higher essence whose hallowed body you are, not on account of my beholding in you a ghost, an appearing spirit, but from egoistic pleasure; you yourself with *your* essence are valuable to me. Max Stirner
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The men of the future will yet fight their way to many a liberty that we do not even miss. Max Stirner
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No knowledge, however thorough and extensive, no brilliance and perspicuity, no dialectic sophistication, will preserve us from the commmonness of thought and will. It is truly not the merit of the school if we do not come out selfish. Max Stirner
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God cares only for what is his, busies himself with only himself, thinks only of himself, and has only himself before his eyes... He serves no higher person, and satisfies only himself. His cause is-- A purely egoistic cause. Max Stirner
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Our athiests are pious people. Max Stirner
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Nothing is more to me than myself. Max Stirner
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The great are great only because we are on our knees. Let us rise! Max Stirner
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Property exists by grace of the law. It is not a fact but a legal fiction. Max Stirner
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Before the sacred, people lost all sense of power and all confidence; they occupy a powerless and humble attitude toward it. And yet no thing is sacred of itself, but by declaring it sacred, by my declaration, my judgment, my bending the knee; in short, by my - conscience. Max Stirner
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Before the sacred, people lose all sense of power and all confidence; they occupy a powerless and humble attitude toward it. And yet no thing is sacred of itself, but by my declaring it sacred, by my declaration, my judgment, my bending the knee; in short, by my - conscience. Max Stirner
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Man has not really vanquished Shamanism and its spooks till he possesses the strength to lay aside not only the belief in ghosts or in spirits, but also the belief in the spirit. Max Stirner