The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Search results for “negative capability”

Staying Alive: Mary Oliver on How Books Saved Her Life and the Greatest Antidote to Sorrow
Staying Alive: Mary Oliver on How Books Saved Her Life and the Greatest Antidote to Sorrow

“The world’s otherness is antidote to confusion [and] standing within this otherness — the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books — can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.”

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10 Learnings from 10 Years of Brain Pickings
10 Learnings from 10 Years of Brain Pickings

Fluid reflections on keeping a solid center.

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John Keats’s Exquisite Love Letter to Fanny Brawne
John Keats’s Exquisite Love Letter to Fanny Brawne

“Love is my religion — I could die for that — I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet.”

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Self-Refinement Through the Wisdom of the Ages: New Year’s Resolutions from Some of Humanity’s Greatest Minds
Self-Refinement Through the Wisdom of the Ages: New Year’s Resolutions from Some of Humanity’s Greatest Minds

Enduring ideas for personal refinement from Seneca, Thoreau, Virginia Woolf, Carl Sagan, Alan Watts, Emerson, Bruce Lee, Maya Angelou, and more.

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Why the Sky and the Ocean Are Blue: Rebecca Solnit on the Color of Distance and Desire
Why the Sky and the Ocean Are Blue: Rebecca Solnit on the Color of Distance and Desire

“Something is always far away… After all we hardly know our own depths.”

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Keats on the Three Layers of Reality and What Gives Meaning to Human Existence
Keats on the Three Layers of Reality and What Gives Meaning to Human Existence

“Every mental pursuit takes its reality and worth from the ardour of the pursuer.”

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The Third Self: Mary Oliver on Time, Concentration, the Artist’s Task, and the Central Commitment of the Creative Life
The Third Self: Mary Oliver on Time, Concentration, the Artist’s Task, and the Central Commitment of the Creative Life

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”

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9 Learnings from 9 Years of Brain Pickings
9 Learnings from 9 Years of Brain Pickings

Reflections on the rewards of seeking out what magnifies your spirit.

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MacArthur Geniuses on the Relationship Between Uncertainty and Creativity
MacArthur Geniuses on the Relationship Between Uncertainty and Creativity

“Cut short of the floundering and you’ve cut short the possible creative outcomes. Cheat on the chaotic stumbling-about, and you’ve robbed yourself of the raw stuff that feeds the imagination.”

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How We Think: John Dewey on the Art of Reflection and Fruitful Curiosity in an Age of Instant Opinions and Information Overload
How We Think: John Dewey on the Art of Reflection and Fruitful Curiosity in an Age of Instant Opinions and Information Overload

“To maintain the state of doubt and to carry on systematic and protracted inquiry — these are the essentials of thinking.”

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