“[T]hose who are placed in positions which demand the surrender of personality, which insist on strict conformity to definite political policies and opinions, must deteriorate, must become mechanical, must lose all capacity to give anything really vital. The world is full of such unfortunate cripples. Their dream is to ‘arrive,’ no matter at what cost. If only we would stop to consider what it means to ‘arrive,’ we would pity the unfortunate victim. Instead of that, we look to the artist, the poet, the writer, the dramatist and thinker who have ‘arrived,’ as the final authority on all matters, whereas in reality their ‘arrival’ is synonymous with mediocrity, with the denial and betrayal of what might in the beginning have meant something real and ideal. The ‘arrived’ artists are dead souls upon the intellectual horizon. The uncompromising and daring spirits never ‘arrive.’ Their life represents an endless battle with the stupidity and the dullness of their time. They must remain what Nietzsche calls ‘untimely,’ because everything that strives for new form, new expression or new values, is always doomed to be untimely.”

— Emma Goldman,
Intellectual Proletarians

“But, although the individual is not man, man is yet present in the individual, and, like every spook and everything divine, has its existence in him. Hence political liberalism awards to the individual everything that pertains to him as ‘a man by birth’, as a born man, among which there are counted liberty of conscience, the possession of goods – in short, the ‘rights of man’; socialism grants to the individual what pertains to him as an active man, as a ‘laboring’ man; finally, humane liberalism gives the individual what he has as ‘a man’, that is, everything that belongs to humanity. Accordingly the single one [Einzige] has nothing at all, humanity everything; and the necessity of the ‘regeneration’ preached in Christianity is demanded unambiguously and in the completest measure. Become a new creature, become ‘man’!”

[…]

“But is my work then really, as the communists suppose, my sole competence? Or does not this consist rather in everything that I am competent for? And does not the workers' society itself have to concede this, in supporting also the sick, children, old people – in short, those who are incapable of work? These are still competent for a good deal, for instance, to preserve their life instead of taking it. If they are competent to cause you to desire their continued existence, they have a power over you. To him who exercised utterly no power over you, you would vouchsafe nothing; he might perish.”


— Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own

“One will notice that I wish to be just to the Germans: I do not want to break faith with myself here. I must therefore also state my objections to them. One pays heavily for coming to power: power makes [one] stupid. The Germans — once they were called the people of thinkers: do they think at all today? The Germans are now bored with the spirit [Geist; intellect], the Germans now mistrust the spirit; politics swallows up all serious concern for really spiritual [geistige; intellectual] matters. ‘Germany, Germany above everything’ [‚Deutschland, Deutschland über alles‘]* — I fear that was the end of German philosophy. ‘Are there any German philosophers? Are there German poets? Are there good German books?’ they ask me abroad. I blush; but with the courage which I maintain even in desperate situations I reply: ‘Well, Bismarck.’ Would it be permissible for me to confess what books are read today? Accursed instinct of mediocrity!”

— Friedrich Nietzsche,
Twilight of the Idols (§8. 1)


* the German national anthem

— Emma Goldman, Victims of Morality

“It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid general applause from all the wits, who believe that it is a joke.”

— Søren Kierkegaard,
Either/Or (Vol I) (chapter 1)

“If the State must count on our humanity, it is the same if one says it must count on our morality. Seeing Man in each other, and acting as men toward each other, is called moral behavior. This is every whit the ‘spiritual love’ of Christianity. For, if I see Man in you, as in myself I see Man and nothing but Man, then I care for you as I would care for myself; for we represent, you see, nothing but the mathematical proposition: A = C and B = C, consequently A = B,—i. e., I nothing but man and you nothing but man, consequently I and you the same. Morality is incompatible with egoism, because the former does not allow validity to me, but only to the Man in me. But, if the State is a society of men, not a union of egos each of whom has only himself before his eyes, then it cannot last without morality, and must insist on morality.

Therefore we two, the State and I, are enemies. I, the egoist, have not at heart the welfare of this ‘human society,’ I sacrifice nothing to it, I only utilize it; but to be able to utilize it completely I transform it rather into my property and my creature,—i. e. I annihilate it, and form in its place the Union of Egoists.”

— Max Stirner

“If Hess attentively observed real life, to which he holds so much, he will see hundreds of such egoistic unions, some passing quickly, others lasting. Perhaps at this very moment, some children have come together just outside his window in a friendly game. If he looks at them, he will see a playful egoistic union. Perhaps Hess has a friend or a beloved; then he knows how one heart finds another, as their two hearts unite egoistically to delight (enjoy) each other, and how no one ‘comes up short’ in this. Perhaps he meets a few good friends on the street and they ask him to accompany them to a tavern for wine; does he go along as a favor to them, or does he ‘unite’ with them because it promises pleasure? Should they thank him heartily for the ‘sacrifice,’ or do they know that all together they form an ‘egoistic union’ for a little while?

To be sure, Hess wouldn’t pay attention to these trivial examples, they are so utterly physical and vastly distinct from sacred society, or rather from the ‘fraternal, human society’ of sacred socialists.”


— Max Stirner, Stirner's Critics (§3)