themarginalian.orgadded August 2026
The Marginalianby Maria Popova12h ago
James Baldwin on How Love (Finally) Finds You By Maria Popova Our language betrays our self-betrayals: We speak of finding love, as if it were an undiscovered eighth continent or a habitable world...
The Marginalianby Maria Popova12h ago
The Madman Who Saved Mothers: The Invention of Handwashing and the Bittersweet True Love Story Behind ‘Frankenstein’ By Maria Popova This essay is adapted from Traversal.
The Marginalianby Maria Popova1d ago
Elizabeth Gilbert on Love, Loss, and How to Move Through Grief as Grief Moves Through You By Maria Popova “All your sorrows have been wasted on you if you have not yet learned how to be wretched,”...
The Marginalianby Maria Popova2d ago
How Memory Makes Us and Breaks Truth: The Rashomon Effect and the Science of How Memories Form and Falter in the Brain By Maria Popova It is already disorienting enough to accept that our attention...
The Marginalianby Maria Popova2d ago
The Secret Power of Ambivalence By Maria Popova The most maddening thing about life is also the most beautiful: its indeterminacy.
The Marginalianby Maria Popova3d ago
Sleeping Beauties: David Byrne on Why Transformative Ideas Fall Dormant and How They Awaken to Change the World By Maria Popova Each time you look up at the night sky, you see only ancient signals...
The Marginalianby Maria Popova3d ago
Improvisation and the Quantum of Consciousness By Maria Popova Few things in life are more vivifying than a shimmering reminder that we can still surprise ourselves — those rare moments when the...
The Marginalianby Maria Popova3d ago
How to Remake Yourself When You Are Undone: Lincoln and the Gift of His Suicidal Depression By Maria Popova “I am now the most miserable man living,” Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809–April 15...
The Marginalianby Maria Popova4d ago
Vincent van Gogh on Fear, Taking Risks, and How Inspired Mistakes Propel Us Forward By Maria Popova During our recent conversation at the Boston Book Festival, the wise and wonderful Amanda Palmer...
The Marginalianby Maria Popova4d ago
Walt Whitman, Shortly After His Paralytic Stroke, on What Makes Life Worth Living By Maria Popova “Do you need a prod?” the poet Mary Oliver asked in her sublime meditation on living with maximal...
The Marginalianby Maria Popova5d ago
Why Are We Not Better Than We Are By Maria Popova “A life of patient suffering… is a better poem in itself than we can any of us write,” the young poet Anne Reeve Aldrich wrote to Emily Dickinson...
The Marginalianby Maria Popova5d ago
A Constellation of Amazements: An Illustrated Love Letter to the Joy of Collecting Things By Maria Popova We are hunter-gatherers with a capacity for amazement, wired to search for an organizing...
The Marginalianby Maria Popova5d ago
How to Criticize with Kindness: Philosopher Daniel Dennett on the Four Steps to Arguing Intelligently By Maria Popova “In disputes upon moral or scientific points,” Arthur Martine counseled in his...
The Marginalianby Maria Popova6d ago
Loneliness, Resilience, and the Right Choice: Poet Diane Ackerman on What She Learned While Working at a Suicide Prevention Hotline By Maria Popova “How are we so optimistic, so careful not to trip...
The Marginalianby Maria Popova6d ago
David Bowie on Creativity and His Advice to Artists By Maria Popova Every creator’s creations are their coping mechanism for life — for the loneliness of being, for the longing for connection, for...
The Marginalianby Maria Popova6d ago
Nietzsche on Walking and Creativity By Maria Popova Almost everything I write, I “write” in the notebook of the mind, with the foot in motion — what happens at the keyboard upon returning from the...
The Marginalianby Maria Popova7d ago
Mister Rogers on the Most Important Mindset for a Parent By Maria Popova Being responsible for ourselves, knowing our own wants and meeting them, is difficult enough — so difficult that the notion...
The Marginalianby Maria Popova7d ago
The Importance of Being Scared: Polish Nobel Laureate Wisława Szymborska on Fairy Tales and the Necessity of Fear By Maria Popova “If you want your children to be intelligent,” Einstein is credited...
The Marginalianby Maria Popova7d ago
Dostoyevsky on What Makes a Good Person By Maria Popova We know good people when we encounter them, when they fall upon our lives like a sunbeam, like a song.
The Marginalianby Maria Popova8d ago
Against Brute Force: D.H. Lawrence on the Superpower of Vulnerability By Maria Popova We live in a culture that has warped strength from the measure of our interior tenacity into the magnitude of...
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