The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “diaries”

Walt Whitman on Beethoven and Music as the Profoundest Expression of Nature
Walt Whitman on Beethoven and Music as the Profoundest Expression of Nature

In praise of the “dainty abandon” that awakens us to wonder and carries us outside ourselves.

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The Art of Living with Wide-Open Consciousness: Alice James on Attentiveness as the Pulse-Beat of Art
The Art of Living with Wide-Open Consciousness: Alice James on Attentiveness as the Pulse-Beat of Art

“There are some people… who drive everywhere and admire nothing.”

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Gauguin’s Stirring First-Hand Account of What Actually Happened the Night Van Gogh Cut off His Own Ear
Gauguin’s Stirring First-Hand Account of What Actually Happened the Night Van Gogh Cut off His Own Ear

“Between two such beings as he and I, the one a perfect volcano, the other boiling too, inwardly, a sort of struggle was preparing.”

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How to Live to the Full While Dying: The Extraordinary Diary of Alice James, William and Henry James’s Underappreciated Sister
How to Live to the Full While Dying: The Extraordinary Diary of Alice James, William and Henry James’s Underappreciated Sister

“It is the most supremely interesting moment in life, the only one in fact when living seems life.”

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Frida Kahlo on the Meanings of the Colors
Frida Kahlo on the Meanings of the Colors

From the color of madness and mystery to that of distance and tenderness.

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The Wisdom of Trees: Walt Whitman on What Our Silent Friends Teach Us About Being Rather Than Seeming
The Wisdom of Trees: Walt Whitman on What Our Silent Friends Teach Us About Being Rather Than Seeming

A supreme lesson in authenticity from a being “so innocent and harmless, yet so savage.”

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Trailblazing Astronomer Maria Mitchell on How We Co-Create Each Other and Recreate Ourselves Through Friendship
Trailblazing Astronomer Maria Mitchell on How We Co-Create Each Other and Recreate Ourselves Through Friendship

“Whatever our degree of friends may be, we come more under their influence than we are aware.”

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John Quincy Adams on Efficiency vs. Effectiveness, the Proper Aim of Ambition, and His Daily Routine
John Quincy Adams on Efficiency vs. Effectiveness, the Proper Aim of Ambition, and His Daily Routine

“The spark from Heaven is given to few — It is not to be obtained by intreaty or by toil.”

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Thoreau on Writing and the Splendors of Mystery in an Age of Knowledge
Thoreau on Writing and the Splendors of Mystery in an Age of Knowledge

“Do not seek expressions, seek thoughts to be expressed.”

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Trailblazing Astronomer Maria Mitchell on Science, Spirituality, and the Conquest of Truth
Trailblazing Astronomer Maria Mitchell on Science, Spirituality, and the Conquest of Truth

“Every formula which expresses a law of nature is a hymn of praise to God.”

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