The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “culture”

The Poetry of Science: A Victorian Portal to Wonder
The Poetry of Science: A Victorian Portal to Wonder

“Truth cannot die; it passes from mind to mind, imparting light in its progress, and constantly renewing its own brightness during its diffusion. The True is the Beautiful; and the truths revealed to the mind render us capable of perceiving new beauties on the earth.”

read article

User-Friendly Self-Deception: Philosopher Amélie Rorty on the Value of Our Delusions and the Antidote to the Self-Defeating Ones
User-Friendly Self-Deception: Philosopher Amélie Rorty on the Value of Our Delusions and the Antidote to the Self-Defeating Ones

“The question is: how can we sustain the illusions essential to ordinary life, without becoming self-damaging idiots?”

read article

Meditation in Sunlight: May Sarton’s Stunning Poem About the Relationship Between Presence, Solitude, and Love
Meditation in Sunlight: May Sarton’s Stunning Poem About the Relationship Between Presence, Solitude, and Love

“…and joy instead of will.”

read article

Nick Cave on the Art of Growing Older
Nick Cave on the Art of Growing Older

“We’re often led to believe that getting older is in itself somehow a betrayal of our idealistic younger self, but sometimes I think it might be the other way around.”

read article

Seneca on Science, Nature, and the Key to a Fulfilled Human Destiny
Seneca on Science, Nature, and the Key to a Fulfilled Human Destiny

“The mind enjoys the complete and perfect benefit of its human destiny only when… entering the secret heart of nature.”

read article

Saying the Ineffable: Poetry and the Language of Silence
Saying the Ineffable: Poetry and the Language of Silence

“The survival of poetry depends on the failure of language.”

read article

If You Fail at Love
If You Fail at Love

Consolation for our learned brokenness on the path to healing.

read article

The Creative Accident: Visionary Ceramicist Edith Heath on Serendipity, the Antidote to Obsolescence, and the Five Pillars of Timelessness
The Creative Accident: Visionary Ceramicist Edith Heath on Serendipity, the Antidote to Obsolescence, and the Five Pillars of Timelessness

On aligning the things we make with basic human values for an enduring world.

read article

Dinosaurs of the Sky: Consummate 19th-Century Scottish Natural History Illustrations of Birds
Dinosaurs of the Sky: Consummate 19th-Century Scottish Natural History Illustrations of Birds

From pigeons to parakeets, an uncommonly beautiful celebration of biodiversity.

read article

The Unphotographabe: Walt Whitman on Birds Migrating at Midnight
The Unphotographabe: Walt Whitman on Birds Migrating at Midnight

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.)