After the annual reading list of the 15 finest books of the year, it’s time for the annual look back upon the best of Brain Pickings this year — “best” being a hybrid measure of the articles you read and shared most ardently, and those I took the greatest pleasure in writing. Please (re)enjoy, and here’s to a vitalizing new year.

1. Why We Fall in Love: The Paradoxical Psychology of Romance and Why Frustration Is Necessary for Satisfaction

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2. 9 Learnings from 9 Years of Brain Pickings

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3. Love, Lunacy, and a Life Fully Lived: Oliver Sacks, the Science of Seeing, and the Art of Being Seen

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4. Nietzsche on How to Find Yourself and the True Value of Education

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5. Patti Smith on Time, Transformation, and How the Radiance of Love Redeems the Rupture of Loss

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6. The Science of Stress and How Our Emotions Affect Our Susceptibility to Burnout and Disease

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7. Desert Solitaire: An Uncommonly Beautiful Love Letter to Solitude and the Spiritual Rewards of Getting Lost

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8. A Rap on Race: Margaret Mead and James Baldwin’s Rare Conversation on Forgiveness and the Difference Between Guilt and Responsibility

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9. Mary Oliver on What Attention Really Means and Her Moving Elegy for Her Soul Mate

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10. The Heart and the Bottle: A Tender Illustrated Fable of What Happens When We Deny Our Difficult Emotions

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11. In Defense of Boredom: 200 Years of Ideas on the Virtues of Not-Doing from Some of Humanity’s Greatest Minds

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12. Virginia Woolf on Why the Best Mind Is the Androgynous Mind

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13. How to Love: Legendary Zen Buddhist Teacher Thich Nhat Hanh on Mastering the Art of “Interbeing”

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14. The Soul of an Octopus: How One of Earth’s Most Alien Creatures Illuminates the Wonders of Consciousness

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15. Creative Courage for Young Hearts: 15 Emboldening Picture Books Celebrating the Lives of Great Artists, Writers, and Scientists

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16. Ursula K. Le Guin on the Sacredness of Public Libraries

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17. Poet and Philosopher David Whyte on Anger, Forgiveness, and What Maturity Really Means

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18. Beatrix Potter, Mycologist: The Beloved Children’s Book Author’s Little-Known Scientific Studies and Illustrations of Mushrooms

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19. Rilke on How Great Sadnesses Bring Us Closer to Ourselves

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20. Poet Jane Kenyon’s Advice on Writing: Some of the Wisest Words to Create and Live By

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Step into the time machine of timeless reading with the best Brain Pickings articles of 2014.