Before the sacred, people lose all sense of power and all confidence; they occupy a powerless and humble attitude toward it. And yet nothing 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

Before the sacred, people lost all sense of power and all confidence; they occupy a powerless and humble attitude toward it. And yet nothing 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

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

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 be hoof, 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

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

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 fulfillment his *human worth* is measured

— Max Stirner

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

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

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

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