The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “politics”

Lorraine Hansberry, the Love of Freedom, and the Freedom of Love
Lorraine Hansberry, the Love of Freedom, and the Freedom of Love

“Ahead of her time, Lorraine’s witness and wisdom help us understand the world, its problems and its possibilities. In her lonely reckonings, her impassioned reaching for justice, and the seriousness of her craft, she teaches us how to more ethically, more lovingly, witness one another today.”

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How John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor’s Pioneering Intimate Partnership of Equals Shaped the Building Blocks of Social Equality and Liberty for the Modern World
How John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor’s Pioneering Intimate Partnership of Equals Shaped the Building Blocks of Social Equality and Liberty for the Modern World

“Compromise is not a sign of the collapse of one’s moral conscience. It is a sign of its strength, for there is nothing more necessary to a moral conscience than the recognition that other people have one, too. A compromise is a knot tied tight between competing decencies.”

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Planting Trees as Resistance and Empowerment: The Remarkable Illustrated Story of Wangari Maathai, the First African Woman to Win the Nobel Peace Prize
Planting Trees as Resistance and Empowerment: The Remarkable Illustrated Story of Wangari Maathai, the First African Woman to Win the Nobel Peace Prize

“A tree is a little bit of the future.”

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Shelley’s Prescient Case for Animal Rights and the Spiritual Value of Vegetarianism
Shelley’s Prescient Case for Animal Rights and the Spiritual Value of Vegetarianism

“By all that is sacred in our hopes for the human race, I conjure those who love happiness and truth, to give a fair trial to the vegetable system.”

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How to Save a World: Rachel Carson’s Advice to Posterity
How to Save a World: Rachel Carson’s Advice to Posterity

“Mankind is challenged, as it has never been challenged before, to prove its maturity and its mastery — not of nature, but of itself.”

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There Are Infinitely Many Kinds of Beautiful Lives: A Reading from “Figuring” Accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma, Benefitting Refugee Children
There Are Infinitely Many Kinds of Beautiful Lives: A Reading from “Figuring” Accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma, Benefitting Refugee Children

A reading from “Figuring” with original music by Yo-Yo Ma, a stunning rendition of the 19-century parlor song “Beautiful Dreamer” by Esperanza Spalding, and a family of friends speaking out against injustice in the universal language of sympathy.

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William Godwin’s Stunning 1794 Advice to a Young Activist on How to Confront the Status Quo with Self-Possession, Dignity, and Persuasive Conviction
William Godwin’s Stunning 1794 Advice to a Young Activist on How to Confront the Status Quo with Self-Possession, Dignity, and Persuasive Conviction

“Above all… abstain from harsh epithets and bitter invective… Truth can never gain by passion, violence, and resentment. It is never so strong as in the firm, fixed mind, that yields to the emotions neither of rage nor fear.”

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Why We Walk: A Manifesto for Peripatetic Empowerment
Why We Walk: A Manifesto for Peripatetic Empowerment

“I walk because, somehow, it’s like reading.”

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Rebecca Solnit on Love, Purposeful Work, and the Meaning of Liberty: An Empowered Retelling of Cinderella
Rebecca Solnit on Love, Purposeful Work, and the Meaning of Liberty: An Empowered Retelling of Cinderella

“There are a lot of people with a lot of ideas about beauty. And love. When you love someone a lot, they just look like love.”

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How Eleanor Roosevelt Revolutionized Politics
How Eleanor Roosevelt Revolutionized Politics

“Eleanor Roosevelt, lean and rangy, wore floral dresses and tucked flowers in the brim of floppy hats perched on top of her wavy hair, but she had a spine as stiff as the steel girder of a skyscraper.”

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