The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “philosophy”

The Fate of Fausto: Oliver Jeffers’s Lovely Painted Fable About the Absurdity of Greed and the Existential Triumph of Enoughness, Inspired by Vonnegut
The Fate of Fausto: Oliver Jeffers’s Lovely Painted Fable About the Absurdity of Greed and the Existential Triumph of Enoughness, Inspired by Vonnegut

A soulful meditation on the eternal battle between the human animal and its ego, played out on the primordial arena of elemental truth.

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The Book of Delights: Poet and Gardener Ross Gay’s Yearlong Experiment in Willful Gladness
The Book of Delights: Poet and Gardener Ross Gay’s Yearlong Experiment in Willful Gladness

“The more you study delight, the more delight there is to study… I felt my life to be more full of delight. Not without sorrow or fear or pain or loss. But more full of delight.”

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Kahlil Gibran on Silence, Solitude, and the Courage to Know Yourself
Kahlil Gibran on Silence, Solitude, and the Courage to Know Yourself

“In much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.”

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Bertrand Russell on How to Heal an Ailing and Divided World
Bertrand Russell on How to Heal an Ailing and Divided World

“What is needed in our very complex modern society is calm consideration, with readiness to call dogmas in question and freedom of mind to do justice to the most diverse points of view.”

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Losing the Birds, Finding the Words: Eve Ensler’s Extraordinary Letter of Apology to Mother Earth
Losing the Birds, Finding the Words: Eve Ensler’s Extraordinary Letter of Apology to Mother Earth

“I am the reason the birds are missing… I am made of dirt and grit and stars and river, skin, bone, leaf, whiskers and claws. I am a part of you, of this, nothing more or less. I am mycelium, petal pistil and stamen… I am energy and I am dust. I am wave and I am wonder. I am an impulse and an order.”

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Dostoyevsky, Just After His Death Sentence Was Repealed, on the Meaning of Life
Dostoyevsky, Just After His Death Sentence Was Repealed, on the Meaning of Life

“To be a human being among people and to remain one forever, no matter in what circumstances, not to grow despondent and not to lose heart — that’s what life is all about, that’s its task.”

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Alain de Botton on Existential Maturity and What Emotional Intelligence Really Means
Alain de Botton on Existential Maturity and What Emotional Intelligence Really Means

“The emotionally intelligent person knows that they will only ever be mentally healthy in a few areas and at certain moments, but is committed to fathoming their inadequacies and warning others of them in good time, with apology and charm.”

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Wendell Berry on Delight as a Force of Resistance to Consumerism, the Key to Mirth Under Hardship, and the Measure of a Rich Life
Wendell Berry on Delight as a Force of Resistance to Consumerism, the Key to Mirth Under Hardship, and the Measure of a Rich Life

“The essential cultural discrimination is not between having and not having or haves and have-nots, but between the superfluous and the indispensable. Wisdom… is always poised upon the knowledge of minimums; it might be thought to be the art of minimums.”

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Edward Weston on the Most Fruitful Attitude Toward Life, Art, and Other People
Edward Weston on the Most Fruitful Attitude Toward Life, Art, and Other People

“I feel towards persons as I do towards art, — constructively.”

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13 Life-Learnings from 13 Years of Brain Pickings
13 Life-Learnings from 13 Years of Brain Pickings

More fluid reflections on keeping a solid center.

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