The Marginalian
The Marginalian

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Beware the Rise of the Pseudo-Intellectual: Tom Wolfe’s Boston University Commencement Address
Beware the Rise of the Pseudo-Intellectual: Tom Wolfe’s Boston University Commencement Address

“We live in an age in which ideas, important ideas, are worn like articles of fashion.”

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The Cosmic Accident of Life: Alan Lightman on Dark Energy, the Multiverse, and Why We Exist
The Cosmic Accident of Life: Alan Lightman on Dark Energy, the Multiverse, and Why We Exist

How we drew the one we have from the zillions of possible universes in the cosmic lottery hat.

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David Foster Wallace’s Timeless Graduation Speech on the Meaning of Life, Adapted in a Short Film
David Foster Wallace’s Timeless Graduation Speech on the Meaning of Life, Adapted in a Short Film

“The real value of a real education … has almost nothing to do with knowledge and everything to do with simple awareness.”

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Remembering Aaron Swartz: David Foster Wallace on the Meaning of Life
Remembering Aaron Swartz: David Foster Wallace on the Meaning of Life

“Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.”

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The Parts We Live With: D.H. Lawrence and the Yearning for Living Unison
The Parts We Live With: D.H. Lawrence and the Yearning for Living Unison

“We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos.”

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Reinventing the Secular Sermon: Remarkable Commencement Addresses by Nora Ephron, David Foster Wallace, Ira Glass, and More
Reinventing the Secular Sermon: Remarkable Commencement Addresses by Nora Ephron, David Foster Wallace, Ira Glass, and More

How to live life “on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.”

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David Foster Wallace on Writing, Death, and Redemption
David Foster Wallace on Writing, Death, and Redemption

“You don’t have to think very hard to realize that our dread of both relationships and loneliness … has to do with angst about death, the recognition that I’m going to die, and die very much alone, and the rest of the world is going to go merrily on without me.”

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What Now? Advice on Writing and Life from Ann Patchett
What Now? Advice on Writing and Life from Ann Patchett

“Coming back is the thing that enables you to see how all the dots in your life are connected.”

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5½ Timeless Commencement Speeches to Teach You to Define Your Own Success
5½ Timeless Commencement Speeches to Teach You to Define Your Own Success

The great and terrible truth of clichés, why success is a dangerous bedfellow, and how disappointment paves the way for originality.

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Something About the Sky: Rachel Carson’s Lost Serenade to the Science of the Clouds, Found and Illustrated by Artist Nikki McClure
Something About the Sky: Rachel Carson’s Lost Serenade to the Science of the Clouds, Found and Illustrated by Artist Nikki McClure

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