Not an old woman that buys a paper of pins, without yielding a part of the price to the banks as interest!

According to your sympathy, you will take pleasure in your own happiness or in the happiness of other people; but it is always your own happiness you seek.

But egoism is more than this. It is the realization by the individual that he is above all institutions and all formulas; that they exist only so far as he chooses to make them his own by accepting them.

However near and dear to you may be your wife, children, friends, they are not you; they are outside of you.

Your thoughts and emotions are yours alone.

Accordingly, when the supply of gold runs short, the security behind the notes is diminished, the loaning of notes is restricted or suspended, and the panic follows.

In brief, egoism in its modern interpretation, is the antithesis, not of altruism, but of idealism.