Source: Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962), p. 7
“How My Egoism Died”
from A Child of the Century
Books
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "How My Egoism Died" by Ben Hecht?
Ben Hecht 32
American screenwriter 1894–1964Related quotes
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
(1647–1680) English poet, and peer of the realm
The Mistress: A Song, ll. 5–8.
Other
G. I. Gurdjieff
(1866–1949) influential spiritual teacher, Armenian philosopher, composer and writer
All and Everything: Views from the Real World (1973)
Context: All religions speak about death during this life on earth. Death must come before rebirth. But what must die? False confidence in one’s own knowledge, self-love and egoism. Our egoism must be broken. We must realize that we are very complicated machines, and so this process of breaking is bound to be a long and difficult task. Before real growth becomes possible, our personality must die.
“Egoism is the identification of the power that knows with the instruments of knowing.”
Patañjali
(-200–-150 BC) ancient Indian scholar(s) of grammar and linguistics, of yoga, of medical treatises
§ 2.6
Yoga Sutras of Patañjali
“Egoism in its narrowest sense is a tautology, not a tactic.”
Bob Black
(1951) American anarchist
Preface to The Right To Be Greedy (1983 edition)
Context: Egoism in its narrowest sense is a tautology, not a tactic. Adolescents of all ages who triumphantly trumpet that "everyone is selfish," as if they’d made a factual discovery about the world, only show that they literally don’t know what they’re talking about. Practical egoism must be something more, it must tell the egoist something useful about himself and other selves which will make a difference in his life (and, as it happens, theirs). My want, needs, desires, whims — call them what you will — extend the ego, which is my-self purposively acting, out where the other selves await me. If I deal with them, as the economists say, "at arm’s length," I can’t get as close as I need to for so much of what I want. At any rate, no "spook," no ideology is going to get in my way. Do you have ideas, or do ideas have you?
Ayn Rand
(1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher
Introducing Objectivism. The Objectivist Newsletter, Vol. 1, No. 8. August, 1962. p. 35.
