Reads by Maria Popova

Eric Berne on the True Meaning of Intimacy, the Greatest Obstacle to It, and How to Transcend It

“A star is the glowing light inside the other person, distantly seen, brave soul’s tiny flame, too bright to approach without great courage and integrity.”

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Psychedelic Dinosaurs, Four-Dimensional Hummingbirds, and How We Got Our Vision: Color, Consciousness, and the Dazzling Universe of Tetrachromacy

“When we pay attention to other animals, our own world expands and deepens.”

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The Soul, the Universe, and the Vastness of Music: Composer Caroline Shaw Brings Whitman and Tennyson to Life in the Spirit of the Golden Record

“Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.”

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The Unphotographable: Alaskan Paradise with Rockwell Kent

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Life and Death and More Life: Leo Tolstoy on Science, Spirituality, and Our Search for Meaning

“A caterpillar sees itself shrivel up, but doesn’t see the butterfly which flies out of it.”

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How to Bear Your Suffering: The Young Poet Anne Reeve Aldrich’s Extraordinary Letter to Emily Dickinson

“It is only through the gates of suffering, either mental or physical, that we can pass into that tender sympathy with the griefs of all of mankind which it ought to be the ideal of every soul to attain.”

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The Milky Way, the Pond, and the Meaning of Life: Thoreau on Solitude, Sympathy, and the Salve for Melancholy

“There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still.”

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Fantastic Toys: German Artist Monika Beisner’s Vintage Celebration of the Unselfconscious Imagination

“Everything that is possible is real.”

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Nick Cave on Songwriting, Truth, and the Mystery of the Unconscious

“Metaphor can create a merciful sense of distance from the cruel idea, or the unspeakable truth, and allow it to exist within us as a kind of poetic radiance, as a work of art.”

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Sappho and the Fevered Heart: Anne Carson on Jealousy

“…greener than grass I am and dead — or almost I seem to me.”

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Reads by Maria Popova

“A star is the glowing light inside the other person, distantly seen, brave soul’s tiny flame, too bright to approach without great courage and integrity.”

“When we pay attention to other animals, our own world expands and deepens.”

“Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.”

“A caterpillar sees itself shrivel up, but doesn’t see the butterfly which flies out of it.”

“It is only through the gates of suffering, either mental or physical, that we can pass into that tender sympathy with the griefs of all of mankind which it ought to be the ideal of every soul to attain.”

“There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still.”

“Everything that is possible is real.”

“Metaphor can create a merciful sense of distance from the cruel idea, or the unspeakable truth, and allow it to exist within us as a kind of poetic radiance, as a work of art.”

“…greener than grass I am and dead — or almost I seem to me.”

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