The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “philosophy”

Whom We Love and Who We Are: José Ortega y Gasset on Love, Attention, and the Invisible Architecture of Our Being
Whom We Love and Who We Are: José Ortega y Gasset on Love, Attention, and the Invisible Architecture of Our Being

“Love is an impulse which springs from the most profound depths of our beings, and upon reaching the visible surface of life carries with it an alluvium of shells and seaweed from the inner abyss.”

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Probable Impossibilities: Physicist Alan Lightman on Beginnings, Endings, and What Makes Life Worth Living
Probable Impossibilities: Physicist Alan Lightman on Beginnings, Endings, and What Makes Life Worth Living

How our cosmic improbability confers dignity and meaning upon our shared existence.

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James Baldwin on Love, the Illusion of Choice, and the Paradox of Freedom
James Baldwin on Love, the Illusion of Choice, and the Paradox of Freedom

“Nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.”

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Alain de Botton on How to Get Over Rejection and Heartbreak
Alain de Botton on How to Get Over Rejection and Heartbreak

A resaning antidote to one of the most dangerous and damaging romantic myths in our culture.

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I Measure Every Grief I Meet: Emily Dickinson on Love and Loss
I Measure Every Grief I Meet: Emily Dickinson on Love and Loss

“‘Tis good — the looking back on Grief.”

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Sylvia Plath and the Loneliness of Love
Sylvia Plath and the Loneliness of Love

“Life is loneliness… Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship — but the loneliness of the soul, in its appalling self-consciousness, is horrible and overpowering.”

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The Mirror of Enigmas: Chance, the Universe, and the Fragile Loveliness of Knowing Who We Are
The Mirror of Enigmas: Chance, the Universe, and the Fragile Loveliness of Knowing Who We Are

“There is no human being on earth capable of declaring with certitude who he is.”

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The Conscience of Color, from Chemistry to Culture
The Conscience of Color, from Chemistry to Culture

“Colors are not possessions; they are the intimate revelations of an energy field… light waves with mathematically precise lengths… deep, resonant mysteries with boundless subjectivity… Our lives, when we pay attention to light, compel us to empathy with color.”

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Matter, Music, and the Mind
Matter, Music, and the Mind

“Sound is sea: pattern lapping pattern… Matter delights in music, and became Bach.”

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Thoreau on Nature and Human Nature, the Tonic of Wildness, and the Value of the Unexplored
Thoreau on Nature and Human Nature, the Tonic of Wildness, and the Value of the Unexplored

“At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable.”

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