The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads by Maria Popova

Sarah Mapps Douglass’s Flowers: The First Surviving Art Signed by an African-American Woman
Sarah Mapps Douglass’s Flowers: The First Surviving Art Signed by an African-American Woman

A rose is a rose is a revolution.

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The Mirror of Enigmas: Chance, the Universe, and the Fragile Loveliness of Knowing Who We Are
The Mirror of Enigmas: Chance, the Universe, and the Fragile Loveliness of Knowing Who We Are

“There is no human being on earth capable of declaring with certitude who he is.”

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James Baldwin on Love, the Illusion of Choice, and the Paradox of Freedom
James Baldwin on Love, the Illusion of Choice, and the Paradox of Freedom

“Nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.”

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Alain de Botton on How to Get Over Rejection and Heartbreak
Alain de Botton on How to Get Over Rejection and Heartbreak

A resaning antidote to one of the most dangerous and damaging romantic myths in our culture.

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I Measure Every Grief I Meet: Emily Dickinson on Love and Loss
I Measure Every Grief I Meet: Emily Dickinson on Love and Loss

“‘Tis good — the looking back on Grief.”

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Probable Impossibilities: Physicist Alan Lightman on Beginnings, Endings, and What Makes Life Worth Living
Probable Impossibilities: Physicist Alan Lightman on Beginnings, Endings, and What Makes Life Worth Living

How our cosmic improbability confers dignity and meaning upon our shared existence.

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The Ocean and the Meaning of Life
The Ocean and the Meaning of Life

“Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp… the ultimate mystery of Life itself.”

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The Conscience of Color, from Chemistry to Culture
The Conscience of Color, from Chemistry to Culture

“Colors are not possessions; they are the intimate revelations of an energy field… light waves with mathematically precise lengths… deep, resonant mysteries with boundless subjectivity… Our lives, when we pay attention to light, compel us to empathy with color.”

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Matter, Music, and the Mind
Matter, Music, and the Mind

“Sound is sea: pattern lapping pattern… Matter delights in music, and became Bach.”

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Citizen Science, the Cosmos, and the Meaning of Life: How the Comet That Might One Day Destroy Us Gives Us the Most Transcendent Celestial Spectacle
Citizen Science, the Cosmos, and the Meaning of Life: How the Comet That Might One Day Destroy Us Gives Us the Most Transcendent Celestial Spectacle

Encounters with the beautiful and the sublime in the science of “the single most dangerous object known to humanity.”

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