"Why, liberty of the press is only _permission of the press_, and the State never will or can voluntarily permit me to grind it to nothingness by the press.
"Let us now, in conclusion, bettering the above language, which is still vague, owing to the phrase 'liberty of the press,' rather put it thus: _Liberty of the press_, the liberals' loud demand, is assuredly possible in the State; yes, it is possible only _in_ the State, because it is a _permission_, and consequently the permitter (the State) must not be lacking. But as permission it has its limit in this very State, which surely should not in reason permit more than is compatible with itself and its welfare: the State fixes for it this limit as the _law_ of its existence and of its extension. That one State brooks more than another is only a quantitative distinction, which alone, nevertheless, lies at the heart of the political liberals: they want in Germany, _e. g._, only a '_more extended, broader_ accordance of free utterance.' The liberty of the press which is sought for is an affair of the _people's_, and before the people (the State) possesses it I may make no use of it. From the standpoint of property in the press, the situation is different. Let my people, if they will, go without liberty of the press, I will manage to print by force or ruse; I get my permission to print only from--_myself_ and my strength.
"If the press is _my own_, I as little need a permission of the State for employing it as I seek that permission in order to blow my nose. The press is my _property_ from the moment when nothing is more to me than myself; for from this moment State, Church, people, society, and the like, cease, because they have to thank for their existence only the disrespect that I have for myself, and with the vanishing of this undervaluation they themselves are extinguished: they exist only when they exist _above me_, exist only as _powers and power-holders_. Or can you imagine a State whose citizens one and all think nothing of it? it would be as certainly a dream, an existence in seeming, as 'united Germany.'
"The press is my own as soon as I myself am my own, a self-owned man: to the egoist belongs the world, because he belongs to no power of the world.