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01 - All Things Are Nothing To Me - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner · Logic Library

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  The ego and his own. By mach Steerner introduction, all things are nothing
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  to me. What is not supposed to be my concern? First and foremost
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  the good cause, then God's cause, the cause of mankind, of truth,
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  of freedom, of humanity, of justice. Further, the cause of
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  my people, my prince, my fatherland. Finally even the cause of mind,
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  and a thousand other causes. Only my cause is never to be my
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  concern. Shame on the egoist who thinks only of himself. Let us look
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  and see then, how they manage their concerns those for whose cause we are
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  to labor, devote ourselves, and grow enthusiastic. You have much profound information
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  to give about God, and have for thousands of years searched the depths of
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  the Godhead and looked into its heart, so that you can doubtless tell us
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  how God himself attends to God's cause which we are called to serve. And
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  you do not conceal the Lord's doings either. Now, what is his cause?
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  Has he, as is demanded of us, made an alien cause,
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  the cause of truth or love? His own? You are shocked by this
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  misunderstanding, and you instruct us that God's cause is indeed the cause of truth
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  and love, but that this cause cannot be called alien to him, because
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  God is himself truth and love. You are shocked by the assumption that God
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  could be like us poor worms, in furthering an alien cause as his own.
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  Should God take up the cause of truth if he were not himself truth?
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  He cares only for his cause. But because he is all in all,
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  therefore all is his cause. But we we are not all in all,
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  and our cause is altogether little and contemptible. Therefore we must serve a
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  higher cause. Now it is clear God cares only for what is his busies
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  himself only with himself, thinks only of himself, and has only himself before
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  his eyes. Woe to all that is not well pleasing to him. He
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  serves no higher person, and satisfies only himself. His cause is a purely
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  egoistic cause. How is it with mankind, whose cause we are to make
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  our own? Is its cause that of another? And does mankind serve a
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  higher cause? No mankind looks only at itself. Mankind will promote the interests
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  of mankind. Only mankind is its own cause, that it may develop.
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  It causes nations and individuals to wear themselves out in its service, and when
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  they have accomplished what mankind needs, it throws them on the dung heap of
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  history. And gratitude is not mankind's cause a purely egoistic cause. I have
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  no need to take up each thing that wants to show its cause on us,
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  and show that it is occupied only with itself, not with us,
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  only with its good, not with ours. Look at the rest for yourselves.
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  Do truth, freedom, humanity, justice, desire anything else than that?
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  You grow enthusiastic and serve them. They'll have an admirable time of it
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  when they receive zealous homage. Just observe the nation that is defended by devoted
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  patriots. The patriots fall in bloody battle or in the fight with hunger,
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  and want what does the nation care for that by the manure of their corpses
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  the nation comes to its bloom. The individuals have died for the great cause
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  of the nation, and the nation sends some words of thanks after them and
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  has the profit of it. I call that a paying kind of egoism.
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  But look at that sultan who cares so lovingly for his people. Is he
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  not pure unselfishness itself? And does he not hourly sacrifice himself for his people?
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  Oh, yes, for his people. Just try it, show yourself
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  not as his, but as your own. For breaking away from his egoism,
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  you will take a trip to jail. The Sultan has set his cause
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  on nothing but himself. He is to himself all in all. He is
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  to himself the only one, and tolerates nobody who would dare not to be
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  one of his people. And you will not learn by these brilliant examples that
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  the egoist gets on best. I, for my part, take a lesson
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  from them, and propose, instead of further unselfishly serving those great egoists,
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  rather be the egoist myself. God and mankind have concerned themselves for nothing,
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  for nothing but themselves. Let me, then, likewise, concern myself for
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  myself, who am equally with God, the nothing of all others, who
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  am my all? Who am the only one? If God, if mankind,
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  as you affirm, have substance enough in themselves to be all in all
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  to themselves, then I feel that I shall still less lack that, and
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  that I shall have no complaint to make of my emptiness. I am not
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  nothing in the sense of emptiness, But I am the creative nothing, the
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  nothing out of which I, myself, as Creator, create everything away.
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  Then with every concern that is not altogether my concern, you think, at
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  least the good cause must be my concern. What's good, what's bad?
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  Why I myself am my concern, and I am neither good nor bad,
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  neither has any meaning for me. The divine is God's concern, the human
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  man's. My concern is neither the divine nor the human, not the true
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  good, just free, et cetera. But solely what is mine. And
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  it is not a general one, but is unique, as I am unique.
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  Nothing is more to me than myself. End of introduction