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 durableness, 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.

The Ego and Its Own