The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads by Maria Popova

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.”

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The Stoic Key to Fulfilling Your Destiny: Seneca on Nature and Human Nature
The Stoic Key to Fulfilling Your Destiny: Seneca on Nature and Human Nature

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

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

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The Remarkable Story of the Dawn Redwood: How a Living Fossil Brought Humanity Together in the Middle of a World War
The Remarkable Story of the Dawn Redwood: How a Living Fossil Brought Humanity Together in the Middle of a World War

How an ancient survivor of the unsurvivable became a triumph of the human spirit in a divided world.

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Audre Lorde on What to Do When Difference Ruptures Society
Audre Lorde on What to Do When Difference Ruptures Society

“My responsibility is to speak the truth as I feel it, and to attempt to speak it with as much precision and beauty as possible.”

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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.

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In Search of the Sacred: Pico Iyer on Our Models of Paradise
In Search of the Sacred: Pico Iyer on Our Models of Paradise

“The thought that we must die… is the reason we must live well.”

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The Ants, the Bees, and the Blind Spots of the Human Mind: How Entomologist Charles Henry Turner Revolutionized Our Understanding of the Evolution of Intelligence and Emotion
The Ants, the Bees, and the Blind Spots of the Human Mind: How Entomologist Charles Henry Turner Revolutionized Our Understanding of the Evolution of Intelligence and Emotion

“The handicaps under which Dr. Turner’s work was accomplished were many, and were modestly and bravely met.”

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The Two Objects of the Good Life: Mary Shelley’s Father on the Relationship Between Personal Happiness, Imagination, and Social Harmony
The Two Objects of the Good Life: Mary Shelley’s Father on the Relationship Between Personal Happiness, Imagination, and Social Harmony

“The true object of education, like that of every other moral process, is the generation of happiness. Happiness to the individual in the first place. If individuals were universally happy, the species would be happy.”

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The Vital Difference Between Work and Labor: Lewis Hyde on Sustaining the Creative Spirit
The Vital Difference Between Work and Labor: Lewis Hyde on Sustaining the Creative Spirit

“The gifts of the inner world must be accepted as gifts in the outer world if they are to retain their vitality.”

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