The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “diaries”

The Value of a Compassionate Lie
The Value of a Compassionate Lie

A poignant reminder that a life of nuance in a black-and-white culture is the greatest art of all.

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Simone Weil on How to Make Use of Your Suffering
Simone Weil on How to Make Use of Your Suffering

“To make use … of the sufferings that chance inflicts upon us is better than inflicting discipline upon oneself.”

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Virginia Woolf on the Elasticity of Time
Virginia Woolf on the Elasticity of Time

“An hour, once it lodges in the queer element of the human spirit, may be stretched to fifty or a hundred times its clock length.”

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In Defense of the Wandering Heart: How Crushes Fortify Your Primary Relationship
In Defense of the Wandering Heart: How Crushes Fortify Your Primary Relationship

“The marriages that last are the ones in which the two members regularly develop (but do not act upon) extramarital infatuations.”

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John Steinbeck’s Pen: How the Joy of Handwriting Helps Us Draft the Meaning of Life
John Steinbeck’s Pen: How the Joy of Handwriting Helps Us Draft the Meaning of Life

“The perfect pen and the perfect paper and me working on work that pleases me and has no note for the critics.”

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From Dream to Nightmare: John Steinbeck on the Perils of Publicity and the Dark Side of Success
From Dream to Nightmare: John Steinbeck on the Perils of Publicity and the Dark Side of Success

“It is so hard to know anything. So impossible to trust oneself. Even to know what there is to trust.”

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Kierkegaard on Popular Opinion, the Petty Jealousies of Criticism, and the Only Cure for Embitterment in Creative Work
Kierkegaard on Popular Opinion, the Petty Jealousies of Criticism, and the Only Cure for Embitterment in Creative Work

“I need the enchantment of creative work to help me forget life’s mean pettinesses.”

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Thoreau on the Sacredness of Libraries and His Ideal Sanctuary for Books
Thoreau on the Sacredness of Libraries and His Ideal Sanctuary for Books

“Those old books suggested a certain fertility … as if they were making a humus for new literatures to spring in.”

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Young Delacroix on the Importance of Solitude in Creative Work and How to Resist Social Distractions
Young Delacroix on the Importance of Solitude in Creative Work and How to Resist Social Distractions

“Nourish yourself with grand and austere ideas of beauty that feed the soul… Seek solitude.”

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Simone Weil on Temptation, the Key to Discipline, and How to Be a Complete Human Being
Simone Weil on Temptation, the Key to Discipline, and How to Be a Complete Human Being

“Never react to an evil in such a way as to augment it.”

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