“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
usableness, 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.”
―
Max Stirner,
The Ego and Its Own
