The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads from 2015

Galileo on Critical Thinking and the Folly of Believing Our Preconceptions
Galileo on Critical Thinking and the Folly of Believing Our Preconceptions

“To divine that wonderful arts lie hid behind trivial and childish things is a conception for superhuman talents.”

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Know Your Clouds: A 1966 Animated Morphology of the Skies
Know Your Clouds: A 1966 Animated Morphology of the Skies

A surprisingly poetic educational film about the ten basic cloud types and their distinct shapes, shades, and altitudes.

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How a Zen Master Responds to Hate Mail
How a Zen Master Responds to Hate Mail

“Your situation, your condition, your opinions — throw them all away.”

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Psychologist Barry Schwartz on What Motivates Us to Work, Why Incentives Fail, and How Our Ideas About Human Nature Shape Who We Become
Psychologist Barry Schwartz on What Motivates Us to Work, Why Incentives Fail, and How Our Ideas About Human Nature Shape Who We Become

“Human nature is to a significant degree the product of human design.”

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Martha Graham on the Life-Force of Creativity and the Divine Dissatisfaction of Being an Artist
Martha Graham on the Life-Force of Creativity and the Divine Dissatisfaction of Being an Artist

“No artist is pleased… There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

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Stress and the Social Self: How Relationships Affect Our Immune System
Stress and the Social Self: How Relationships Affect Our Immune System

“We are all tethered to our social worlds by invisible but steel strong wires.”

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Alice Walker on What Her Father Taught Her About Lying and the Love-Expanding Capacity of Telling the Truth
Alice Walker on What Her Father Taught Her About Lying and the Love-Expanding Capacity of Telling the Truth

Why telling the truth is a supreme act of love and the most powerful antidote to violence.

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

“All love stories are frustration stories… To fall in love is to be reminded of a frustration that you didn’t know you had.”

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Virginia Woolf on the Past and How to Live More Fully in the Present
Virginia Woolf on the Past and How to Live More Fully in the Present

“The past only comes back when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surface of a deep river.”

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Gustave Doré’s Hauntingly Beautiful Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno
Gustave Doré’s Hauntingly Beautiful Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno

“In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost.”

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