The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “philosophy”

A Guide for the Perplexed: Mapping the Meaning of Life and the Four Levels of Being
A Guide for the Perplexed: Mapping the Meaning of Life and the Four Levels of Being

How to harness the uniquely human power of “consciousness recoiling upon itself.”

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C.S. Lewis on Suffering and What It Means to Have Free Will in a Universe of Fixed Laws
C.S. Lewis on Suffering and What It Means to Have Free Will in a Universe of Fixed Laws

“Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.”

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Physician Allison Ballantine’s Short, Stirring Commencement Address on Living with Presence
Physician Allison Ballantine’s Short, Stirring Commencement Address on Living with Presence

How the hamster wheel of achievement and approval can cheat us.

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Chinua Achebe on the Meaning of Life and the Writer’s Responsibility in the World
Chinua Achebe on the Meaning of Life and the Writer’s Responsibility in the World

The difference between blind optimism and the urge to improve the world’s imperfection.

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Buddhist Economics: How to Start Prioritizing People Over Products and Creativity Over Consumption
Buddhist Economics: How to Start Prioritizing People Over Products and Creativity Over Consumption

“Work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure.”

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Henry Miller on Money and How the Hedonic Treadmill of Material Rewards Entraps Us
Henry Miller on Money and How the Hedonic Treadmill of Material Rewards Entraps Us

“The dilemma in which we find ourselves today is that no matter how much we increase the purchasing power of the wage-earner he never has enough.”

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The Poetics of Reverie: Philosopher Gaston Bachelard on Love, Solitude, and Happiness
The Poetics of Reverie: Philosopher Gaston Bachelard on Love, Solitude, and Happiness

“Love is the contact of two poetries, the fusion of two reveries.”

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Swami Vivekananda on the Secret of Work: Intelligent Consolation for the Pressures of Productivity from 1896
Swami Vivekananda on the Secret of Work: Intelligent Consolation for the Pressures of Productivity from 1896

“Every work that we do… every thought that we think, leaves such an impression on the mind-stuff…”

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Thoreau on What Skunk-Cabbage Can Teach Us About Optimism and the Meaning of Human Life
Thoreau on What Skunk-Cabbage Can Teach Us About Optimism and the Meaning of Human Life

“There is no can’t nor cant to them. They see over the brow of winter’s hill. They see another summer ahead.”

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The Art of Looking: How to Live with Presence, Break the Tyranny of Productivity, and Learn to See Our Everyday Wonderland
The Art of Looking: How to Live with Presence, Break the Tyranny of Productivity, and Learn to See Our Everyday Wonderland

“When you look closely at anything familiar, it transmogrifies into something unfamiliar.”

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