The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads by Maria Popova

Anatomy of Hatred: The Paradoxical Psychology of How That Which Repels Us Binds Us
Anatomy of Hatred: The Paradoxical Psychology of How That Which Repels Us Binds Us

“The closer the likeness … the more virulent the hatred.”

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How to Break Up Like a Poet: Edna St. Vincent Millay and the Art of the Kind, Clean Break
How to Break Up Like a Poet: Edna St. Vincent Millay and the Art of the Kind, Clean Break

“I am most faithless when I most am true.”

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The Forgotten Visionary Richard Jefferies on Nature as a Portal to Self-Transcendence
The Forgotten Visionary Richard Jefferies on Nature as a Portal to Self-Transcendence

“The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we really live, so that the longer we can stay among these things so much the more is snatched from inevitable Time.”

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Sam Shepard in Praise of Writing Letters as an Incomparable Art of Human Connection and a Creative Practice
Sam Shepard in Praise of Writing Letters as an Incomparable Art of Human Connection and a Creative Practice

An ode to the art of relationship sculpted in time.

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Rachel Carson on Writing and the Loneliness of Creative Work
Rachel Carson on Writing and the Loneliness of Creative Work

“If you write what you yourself sincerely think and feel and are interested in… you will interest other people.”

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Trailblazing Astronomer Maria Mitchell on How We Co-Create Each Other and Recreate Ourselves Through Friendship
Trailblazing Astronomer Maria Mitchell on How We Co-Create Each Other and Recreate Ourselves Through Friendship

“Whatever our degree of friends may be, we come more under their influence than we are aware.”

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How We Bridge the Real and the Ideal: Frederick Douglass on Art as a Tool of Constructive Self-Criticism and a Force of Cultural Progress
How We Bridge the Real and the Ideal: Frederick Douglass on Art as a Tool of Constructive Self-Criticism and a Force of Cultural Progress

“The process by which man is able to posit his own subjective nature outside of himself … is at [the] bottom of all effort and the germinating principles of all reform and all progress.”

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Empathy Is a Clock That Ticks in the Consciousness of Another: The Science of How Our Social Interactions Shape Our Experience of Time
Empathy Is a Clock That Ticks in the Consciousness of Another: The Science of How Our Social Interactions Shape Our Experience of Time

“We may be born alone, but childhood ends with a synchrony of clocks, as we lend ourselves fully to the contagion of time.”

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The Paper-Flower Tree: An Illustrated Ode to the Courage of Withstanding Cynicism and the Generative Power of the Affectionate Imagination
The Paper-Flower Tree: An Illustrated Ode to the Courage of Withstanding Cynicism and the Generative Power of the Affectionate Imagination

A lovely reminder that we perceive the world not as it is but as we are.

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A Stoic’s Key to Peace of Mind: Seneca on the Antidote to Anxiety
A Stoic’s Key to Peace of Mind: Seneca on the Antidote to Anxiety

“There are more things … likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

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