The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “letters”

Descartes on the Cure for Indecision
Descartes on the Cure for Indecision

“There are no grounds for fear of the unknown: for often the things we most dreaded, before we experienced them, turn out to be better than those we desired.”

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Dissident Poet Boris Pasternak on Aloneness and Why We Make Art
Dissident Poet Boris Pasternak on Aloneness and Why We Make Art

“A book is nothing but a cube of hot, smoking conscience.”

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Keats on the Three Layers of Reality and What Gives Meaning to Human Existence
Keats on the Three Layers of Reality and What Gives Meaning to Human Existence

“Every mental pursuit takes its reality and worth from the ardour of the pursuer.”

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The Trans-Sensory Transcendence of Music: Helen Keller’s Electrifying Letter About “Hearing” Beethoven’s Ode to Joy
The Trans-Sensory Transcendence of Music: Helen Keller’s Electrifying Letter About “Hearing” Beethoven’s Ode to Joy

“I felt the chorus grow more exultant, more ecstatic, upcurving swift and flame-like, until my heart almost stood still.”

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When Debate Is Futile: Bertrand Russell’s Remarkable Response to a Fascist’s Provocation
When Debate Is Futile: Bertrand Russell’s Remarkable Response to a Fascist’s Provocation

“The emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us.”

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Einstein on Widening Our Circles of Compassion
Einstein on Widening Our Circles of Compassion

“Our task must be to free ourselves … by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

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De Profundis: Patti Smith Reads Oscar Wilde’s Stirring Letter on Suffering and Transcendence, Penned in Prison
De Profundis: Patti Smith Reads Oscar Wilde’s Stirring Letter on Suffering and Transcendence, Penned in Prison

“I have got to make everything that has happened to me good for me… There is not a single degradation of the body which I must not try and make into a spiritualising of the soul.”

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Abraham Lincoln on Living with Loss: His Magnificent Letter of Consolation to a Grief-stricken Young Woman
Abraham Lincoln on Living with Loss: His Magnificent Letter of Consolation to a Grief-stricken Young Woman

On trusting that time will transmute the unbearable pain of grief into “a sad sweet feeling in your heart.”

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Mozart and Haydn’s Beautiful, Selfless Friendship
Mozart and Haydn’s Beautiful, Selfless Friendship

“If I could only impress on the soul of every friend of music, and on high personages in particular, how inimitable are Mozart’s works, how profound, how musically intelligent, how extraordinarily sensitive!”

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Rilke on Writing and What It Takes to Be an Artist
Rilke on Writing and What It Takes to Be an Artist

“Go into yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes rise; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create.”

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