The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “philosophy”

Why the Sky and the Ocean Are Blue: Rebecca Solnit on the Color of Distance and Desire
Why the Sky and the Ocean Are Blue: Rebecca Solnit on the Color of Distance and Desire

“Something is always far away… After all we hardly know our own depths.”

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Emerson on the Two Pillars of Friendship
Emerson on the Two Pillars of Friendship

“A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere.”

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Henry Miller on Money and How the Hedonic Treadmill of Material Rewards Entraps Us
Henry Miller on Money and How the Hedonic Treadmill of Material Rewards Entraps Us

“The dilemma in which we find ourselves today is that no matter how much we increase the purchasing power of the wage-earner he never has enough.”

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The Poetics of Reverie: Philosopher Gaston Bachelard on Love, Solitude, and Happiness
The Poetics of Reverie: Philosopher Gaston Bachelard on Love, Solitude, and Happiness

“Love is the contact of two poetries, the fusion of two reveries.”

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Swami Vivekananda on the Secret of Work: Intelligent Consolation for the Pressures of Productivity from 1896
Swami Vivekananda on the Secret of Work: Intelligent Consolation for the Pressures of Productivity from 1896

“Every work that we do… every thought that we think, leaves such an impression on the mind-stuff…”

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How We Think: John Dewey on the Art of Reflection and Fruitful Curiosity in an Age of Instant Opinions and Information Overload
How We Think: John Dewey on the Art of Reflection and Fruitful Curiosity in an Age of Instant Opinions and Information Overload

“To maintain the state of doubt and to carry on systematic and protracted inquiry — these are the essentials of thinking.”

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A Guide for the Perplexed: Mapping the Meaning of Life and the Four Levels of Being
A Guide for the Perplexed: Mapping the Meaning of Life and the Four Levels of Being

How to harness the uniquely human power of “consciousness recoiling upon itself.”

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C.S. Lewis on Suffering and What It Means to Have Free Will in a Universe of Fixed Laws
C.S. Lewis on Suffering and What It Means to Have Free Will in a Universe of Fixed Laws

“Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.”

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Physician Allison Ballantine’s Short, Stirring Commencement Address on Living with Presence
Physician Allison Ballantine’s Short, Stirring Commencement Address on Living with Presence

How the hamster wheel of achievement and approval can cheat us.

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Chinua Achebe on the Meaning of Life and the Writer’s Responsibility in the World
Chinua Achebe on the Meaning of Life and the Writer’s Responsibility in the World

The difference between blind optimism and the urge to improve the world’s imperfection.

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