The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads by Maria Popova

The Spirit of Revolt: The Radical Russian Dissident Prince Peter Kropotkin on How to Reboot a Complacent Society
The Spirit of Revolt: The Radical Russian Dissident Prince Peter Kropotkin on How to Reboot a Complacent Society

“Courage, devotion, the spirit of sacrifice, are as contagious as cowardice, submission, and panic.”

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Women Holding Things: Artist Maira Kalman’s Tender and Quirky Ode to the Weight of the World and the Barely Bearable Lightness of Being
Women Holding Things: Artist Maira Kalman’s Tender and Quirky Ode to the Weight of the World and the Barely Bearable Lightness of Being

“There can never be enough time. And you can never hold on to it.”

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16 Life-Learnings from 16 Years of The Marginalian
16 Life-Learnings from 16 Years of The Marginalian

Reflections on keeping the soul intact and alive and worthy of itself.

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C.S. Lewis on Our Task in Troubled Times
C.S. Lewis on Our Task in Troubled Times

“Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future… The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.”

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How to Cherish Your Human Condition: The Poetic Naturalist Loren Eiseley on the Meaning of Life
How to Cherish Your Human Condition: The Poetic Naturalist Loren Eiseley on the Meaning of Life

“The truth is that we are all potential fossils still carrying within our bodies the crudities of former existences, the marks of a world in which living creatures flow with little more consistency than clouds from age to age.”

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How to Move a Mind: Barry Lopez on the Power of Metaphor Over Data
How to Move a Mind: Barry Lopez on the Power of Metaphor Over Data

What it takes “to think abstract problems through on several planes at the same time, to stay alert for symbolic and allegorical meanings, to appreciate the utility of nuance.”

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Repentance, Repair, and What True Forgiveness Takes: Lessons from Maimonides for the Modern World
Repentance, Repair, and What True Forgiveness Takes: Lessons from Maimonides for the Modern World

“Sometimes we are hurt. Sometimes we hurt others, whether intentionally or not. The path of repentance is one that can help us not only to repair what we have broken, to the fullest extent possible, but to grow in the process of doing so.”

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Dostoyevsky in Love
Dostoyevsky in Love

“I love her happiness more than my own.”

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James Baldwin on Reconciling Acceptance and Action
James Baldwin on Reconciling Acceptance and Action

Notes on the change that begins in the heart.

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How to Stop Waiting and Start Living: A Jolt from Henry James
How to Stop Waiting and Start Living: A Jolt from Henry James

“It wouldn’t have been failure to be bankrupt, dishonoured, pilloried, hanged; it was failure not to be anything.”

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