The State has always one purpose: to limit, control, subordinate the individual and subject him to the general purpose Through its censorship, its supervision, and its police the State tries to obstruct all free activity and sees this repression as its duty, because the instinct of self-preservation demands it. The State does not permit me to use my thoughts to their full value and communicate them to other men unless they are its own Otherwise it shuts me up.
Max StirnerIf the child has not an object that it can occupy itself with, it feels ennui; for it does not yet know how to occupy itself with itself.
Max StirnerIf man puts his honor first in relying upon himself, knowing himself and applying himself, this in self-reliance, self-assertion, and freedom, he then strives to rid himself of the ignorance which makes a strange impenetrable object a barrier and a hindrance to his self-knowledge.
Max StirnerReligion itself is without genius. There is no religious genius and no one would be permitted to distinguish between the talented and the untalented in religion.
Max StirnerMan 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 StirnerThe web of hypocrisy of today hangs on the frontiers of two domains, between which our time swings back and forth, attaching its fine threads of deception and self-deception. No longer vigorous enough to serve morality without doubt or weakening, not yet reckless enough to live wholly to egoism, it trembles now toward the one and now toward the other in the spider-web of hypocrisy, and, crippled by the curse of halfness, catches only miserable, stupid flies.
Max Stirner