The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “culture”

Theodore Roosevelt on the Cowardice of Cynicism and the Courage to Create Rather Than Tear Down
Theodore Roosevelt on the Cowardice of Cynicism and the Courage to Create Rather Than Tear Down

“The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt.”

read article

Three Balls of Wool: An Illustrated Celebration of Nonconformity and the Courage to Remake Society’s Givens
Three Balls of Wool: An Illustrated Celebration of Nonconformity and the Courage to Remake Society’s Givens

A poignant and hope-giving allegory based on the true story of a refugee family.

read article

Anna Deavere Smith on the Importance of Bringing Light to History’s Shadows and Resisting the Destructive Patterns Handed Down to Us by Our Invisible Pasts
Anna Deavere Smith on the Importance of Bringing Light to History’s Shadows and Resisting the Destructive Patterns Handed Down to Us by Our Invisible Pasts

“A beating — even a public beating — could happen without anyone so much as striking a blow.”

read article

Evolutionary Biologist Lynn Margulis on the Spirituality of Science and the Interconnectedness of Life Across Time, Space, and Species
Evolutionary Biologist Lynn Margulis on the Spirituality of Science and the Interconnectedness of Life Across Time, Space, and Species

“The fact that we are connected through space and time shows that life is a unitary phenomenon, no matter how we express that fact.”

read article

The Paradox of Freedom: The Great Humanistic Philosopher and Psychologist Erich Fromm on Moral Aloneness and Our Mightiest Antidote to Terror
The Paradox of Freedom: The Great Humanistic Philosopher and Psychologist Erich Fromm on Moral Aloneness and Our Mightiest Antidote to Terror

“Modern man still is anxious and tempted to surrender his freedom to dictators of all kinds, or to lose it by transforming himself into a small cog in the machine.”

read article

J.D. McClatchy on the Contrast and Complementarity of Desire and Love
J.D. McClatchy on the Contrast and Complementarity of Desire and Love

“Love is the quality of attention we pay to things.”

read article

Hymn to Time: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Ode to the Most Mysterious Dimension of Being
Hymn to Time: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Ode to the Most Mysterious Dimension of Being

An ode to the eternal “let there be” between death and chance.

read article

Esperanza Spalding Performs William Blake’s Short Existential Poem “The Fly”
Esperanza Spalding Performs William Blake’s Short Existential Poem “The Fly”

A centuries-old, timeless meditation on chance, suffering, and the improbable glory of life.

read article

Trailblazing Scottish Mountaineer and Poet Nan Shepherd on the Transcendent Rewards of Walking and What Makes for an Ideal Walking Companion
Trailblazing Scottish Mountaineer and Poet Nan Shepherd on the Transcendent Rewards of Walking and What Makes for an Ideal Walking Companion

“The body is not made negligible, but paramount. Flesh is not annihilated but fulfilled. One is not bodiless, but essential body.”

read article

Rilke on Inspiration and the Combinatorial Nature of Creativity
Rilke on Inspiration and the Combinatorial Nature of Creativity

“One must have memories of many nights of love, none of which was like the others… One must also have been beside the dying, one must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window…”

read article

View Full Site

The Marginalian participates in the Bookshop.org and Amazon.com affiliate programs, designed to provide a means for sites to earn commissions by linking to books. In more human terms, this means that whenever you buy a book from a link here, I receive a small percentage of its price, which goes straight back into my own colossal biblioexpenses. Privacy policy. (TLDR: You're safe — there are no nefarious "third parties" lurking on my watch or shedding crumbs of the "cookies" the rest of the internet uses.)