The Ego and Its Own

Part 2, Chapter 3 : The Unique One
The Unique One Pre-Christian and Christian times pursue opposite goals; the former wants to idealize the real, the latter to realize the ideal; the former seeks the "holy spirit," the latter the "glorified body." Hence the former closes with insensitiveness to the real, with "contempt for the world"; the latter will end with the casting off of the ideal, with "contempt for the spirit." The opposition of the real and the ideal is an irreconcilable one, and the one can never become the other: if the ideal became the real, it would no longer be the ideal; and, if the real became the ideal, the ideal alone would be, but not at all the real. The opposition of the two is not to be vanquished otherwise than if some one annihilates both. Only in this "some one," the third party, does the opposition find its end; otherwise idea and reality will ever fail to coincide. The idea cannot be so realized as to remain idea, but is realized only when it dies as idea; and it is the... (From : WikiSource.)

Part 2, Chapter 2, Section 3 : My Self-Enjoyment
My Self-Enjoyment We stand at the boundary of a period. The world hitherto took thought for nothing but the gain of life, took care for - life. For whether all activity is put on the stretch for the life of this world or of the other, for the temporal or for the eternal, whether one hankers for "daily bread" ("Give us our daily bread") or for "holy bread" ("the true bread from heaven" "the bread of God, that comes from heaven and gives life to the world"; "the bread of life," John 6), whether one takes care for "dear life" or for "life to eternity" - this does not change the object of the strain and care, which in the one case as in the other shows itself to be life. Do the modern tendencies announce themselves otherwise? People now want nobody to be embarrassed for the most indispensable necessaries of life, but want every one to feel secure as to these; and on the other hand they teach that man has this life to attend to and the real world to adapt himself to, without... (From : WikiSource.)

Part 2, Chapter 2, Section 2 : My Intercourse
My Intercourse In society the human demand at most can be satisfied, while the egoistic must always come short. Because it can hardly escape anybody that the present shows no such living interest in any question as in the "social," one has to direct his gaze especially to society. Indeed, if the interest felt in it were less passionate and dazzled, people would not so much, in looking at society, lose sight of the individuals in it, and would recognize that a society cannot become new so long as those who form and constitute it remain the old ones. If, for example, there was to arise in the Jewish people a society which should spread a new faith over the earth, these apostles could in no case remain Pharisees. As you are, so you present yourself, so you behave toward men: a hypocrite as a hypocrite, a Christian as a Christian. Therefore the character of a society is determined by the character of its members: they are its creators. So much at least one mu... (From : WikiSource.)

Part 2, Chapter 2, Section 1 : My Power
My Power Right is the spirit of society. If society has a will this will is simply right: society exists only through right. But, as it endures only exercising a sovereignty over individuals, right is its sovereign will . Aristotle says justice is the advantage of society. All existing right is - foreign law; some one makes me out to be in the right, "does right by me." But should I therefore be in the right if all the world made me out so? And yet what else is the right that I obtain in the state, in society, but a right of those foreign to me? When a blockhead makes me out in the right, I grow distrustful of my rightness; I don't like to receive it from him. But, even when a wise man makes me out in the right, I nevertheless am not in the right on that account. Whether I am in the right is completely independent of the fool's making out and of the wise man's. All the same, we have coveted th... (From : WikiSource.)

Part 2, Chapter 2 : The Owner
The Owner I - do I come to myself and mine through liberalism? Whom does the liberal look upon as his equal? Man! Be only man - and that you are anyway - and the liberal calls you his brother. He asks very little about your private opinions and private follies, if only he can espy "Man" in you. But, as he takes little heed of what you are privatim - indeed, in a strict following out of his principle sets no value at all on it - he sees in you only what you are generatim. In other words, he sees in you, not you, but the species; not Tom or Jim, but Man; not the real or unique one, but your essence or your concept; not the bodily man, but the spirit. As Hans you would not be his equal, because he is Kunz, therefore not Hans; as man you are the same that he is. And, since as Hans you virtually do not exist at all for him (so far, namely, as he is a liberal and not unconsciously an egoist), he has really made "brother-love" very easy for himself: he loves in... (From : WikiSource.)

The Possessed
The Possessed Have you ever seen a spirit? "No, not I, but my grandmother." Now, you see, it's just so with me too; I myself haven't seen any, but my grandmother had them running between her feet all sorts of ways, and out of confidence in our grandmothers' honesty we believe in the existence of spirits. But had we no grandfathers then, and did they not shrug their shoulders every time our grandmothers told about their ghosts? Yes, those were unbelieving men who have harmed our good religion much, those rationalists! We shall feel that! What else lies at the bottom of this warm faith in ghosts, if not the faith in "the existence of spiritual beings in general," and is not this latter itself disastrously unsettled if saucy men of the underst... (From : WikiSource.)

Ownness
Ownness "Does not the spirit thirst for freedom?" - Alas, not my spirit alone, my body too thirsts for it hourly! When before the odorous castle-kitchen my nose tells my palate of the savory dishes that are being prepared therein, it feels a fearful pining at its dry bread; when my eyes tell the hardened back about soft down on which one may lie more delightfully than on its compressed straw, a suppressed rage seizes it; when - but let us not follow the pains further. - And you call that a longing for freedom? What do you want to become free from, then? From your hardtack and your straw bed? Then throw them away! - But that seems not to serve you: you want rather to have the freedom to enjoy delicious foods and downy beds. Are men to give y... (From : WikiSource.)

TO MY SWEETHEART MARIE DÄHNHARDT... (From : WikiSource.)

Humane Liberalism
Humane Liberalism As liberalism is completed in self-criticizing, critical liberalism - in which the critic remains a liberal and does not go beyond the principle of liberalism, Man - this may distinctively be named after Man and called the "humane." The laborer is counted as the most material and egoistical man. He does nothing at all for humanity, does everything for himself, for his welfare. The commonalty, because it proclaimed the freedom of Man only as to his birth, had to leave him in the claws of the un-human man (the egoist) for the rest of life. Hence under the regime of political liberalism egoism has an immense field for free utilization. The laborer will utilize society for his egoistic ends as the commoner does the state. You ... (From : WikiSource.)

A Human Life
A Human Life From the moment when he catches sight of the light of the world a man seeks to find out himself and get hold of himself out of its confusion, in which he, with everything else, is tossed about in motley mixture. But everything that comes in contact with the child defends itself in turn against his attacks, and asserts its own persistence. Accordingly, because each thing cares for itself and at the same time comes into constant collision with other things, the combat of self-assertion is unavoidable. Victory or defeat - between the two alternatives the fate of the combat wavers. The victor becomes the lord, the vanquished one the subject: the former exercises supremacy and "rights of supremacy," the latter fulfills in awe and de... (From : WikiSource.)