The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads by Maria Popova

How to Tell Love from Desire: José Ortega y Gasset on the Chronic Confusions of Our Longing
How to Tell Love from Desire: José Ortega y Gasset on the Chronic Confusions of Our Longing

“Loving is perennial vivification… a centrifugal act of the soul in constant flux that goes toward the object and envelops it in warm corroboration, uniting us with it and positively affirming its being.”

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Facts about the Moon: Dorianne Laux’s Stunning Poem about Bearing Our Human Losses When Even the Moon Is Leaving Us
Facts about the Moon: Dorianne Laux’s Stunning Poem about Bearing Our Human Losses When Even the Moon Is Leaving Us

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The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: Uncommonly Lovely Invented Words for What We Feel but Cannot Name
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: Uncommonly Lovely Invented Words for What We Feel but Cannot Name

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The Parts We Live With: D.H. Lawrence and the Yearning for Living Unison
The Parts We Live With: D.H. Lawrence and the Yearning for Living Unison

“We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos.”

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Marie Howe’s Stunning Hymn of Humanity, Animated
Marie Howe’s Stunning Hymn of Humanity, Animated

“It began as an almost inaudible hum…”

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The Merger Self, the Seeker Self, and the Lifelong Challenge of Balancing Intimacy and Independence
The Merger Self, the Seeker Self, and the Lifelong Challenge of Balancing Intimacy and Independence

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Shame and the Secret Chambers of the Self: Pioneering Sociologist and Philosopher Helen Merrell Lynd on the Uncomfortable Path to Wholeness
Shame and the Secret Chambers of the Self: Pioneering Sociologist and Philosopher Helen Merrell Lynd on the Uncomfortable Path to Wholeness

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Home: An Illustrated Celebration of the Genius and Wonder of Animal Dwellings
Home: An Illustrated Celebration of the Genius and Wonder of Animal Dwellings

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But We Had Music: Nick Cave Reads an Animated Poem about Black Holes, Eternity, and How to Bear Our Lives
But We Had Music: Nick Cave Reads an Animated Poem about Black Holes, Eternity, and How to Bear Our Lives

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William James on Love
William James on Love

“If it comes, it comes; if it does not come, no process of reasoning can force it. Yet it transforms the value of the creature loved.”

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