Maria Popova

"All that you touch
You Change.

All that you Change
Changes you.

The only lasting truth
Is Change.

God
Is Change."

An Octavia Butler gem: www.themarginalian.org/2026/03/06/o...

Virginia Woolf on Love “I think we moderns lack love,” Virginia Woolf (January 25, 1882–March 28, 1941) diagnosed us in the first year of our deadliest war. The paradox is that when we lack something lo…

Virginia Woolf on love www.themarginalian.org/2025/09/09/v...

But We Had Music How, knowing that even the universe is dying, do we bear our lives? Most readily, through friendship, through connection, through co-creating the world we want to live in for the brief time we have…

If you find yourself wondering about the point of it all, this poem might help: www.themarginalian.org/2026/03/05/b...

A little assurance for the power of time. As always, find this #birddivination as a solo print and part of the deck of 100, along with the story and process behind them, at almanacofirds.org

Nietzsche on the journey of becoming and what it means to be a free spirit www.themarginalian.org/2015/10/15/n...

The Four Desires Driving All Human Behavior: Bertrand Russell’s Magnificent Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech “Nothing in the world is more exciting than a moment of sudden discovery or invention, and many more people are capable of experiencing such moments than is sometimes thought.”

The four desires driving all human behavior – Bertrand Russell's magnificent Nobel Prize acceptance speech www.themarginalian.org/2015/09/21/b...

How to be a tree – notes on the resilience of letting go www.themarginalian.org/2026/03/05/t...

Gabriel García Márquez’s Formative Reading List: 24 Books That Shaped One of Humanity’s Greatest Writers “Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it.”

“Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it.”

Gabriel García Márquez would have been 99 today. His formative reading list of 24 books that shaped his visionary mind: www.themarginalian.org/2015/04/06/m...

Evolutionary Biologist Lynn Margulis on the Spirituality of Science and the Interconnectedness of Life Across Time, Space, and Species “The fact that we are connected through space and time shows that life is a unitary phenomenon, no matter how we express that fact.”

“The fact that we are connected through space and time shows that life is a unitary phenomenon, no matter how we express that fact.”

The visionary Lynn Margulis, who would have been 88 today, on the spirituality of science and the interconnectedness of life

How to conquer self-doubt and overcome creative block – artist Sol LeWitt's magnificent letter of advice to his brilliant friend Eva Hesse www.themarginalian.org/2016/09/09/d...

What Happens When We Die “How can a creature who will certainly die have an understanding of things that will exist forever?”

What happens when we die www.themarginalian.org/2026/03/05/a...

For an act of resistance to the tyranny of algorithms, try the Marginalian newsletter—undistracted notes on the search for meaning, free, ad-free, AI-free, fully human since 2006: themarginalian.org/newsletter

"If it is right, it happens -- The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away."

Steinbeck's classic letter of advice on love, written to his teenage son: www.themarginalian.org/2012/01/12/j...

Oliver Sacks on the Three Essential Elements of Creativity “It takes a special energy, over and above one’s creative potential, a special audacity or subversiveness, to strike out in a new direction once one is settled.”

Oliver Sacks on the 3 essential elements of creativity www.themarginalian.org/2026/03/05/o...

Kierkegaard on how to channel anxiety into creativity www.themarginalian.org/2013/06/19/k...

How do we know what we want – Milan Kundera on the central ambivalences of life and love www.themarginalian.org/2015/10/16/m...

A favorite #birddivination to regain perspective. As always, find it as a solo print and part of the deck of 100, along with the story and process behind them, at almanacofirds.org

Albert Camus on the Source of Strength and How to Save Our Sanity in Trying Times “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

“In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

Albert Camus on the source of strength and how to save our sanity in trying times: www.themarginalian.org/2026/03/04/a...

"No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life."

Nietzsche on how to find yourself www.themarginalian.org/2015/09/30/n...

The Figments of Love and the Hallucinations of Reason This essay is adapted from Traversal. We feel first and think second, then spend our lives contorting to invert the order, sublimating emotion to reason, only to find ourselves made smaller and les…

The figments of love and the hallucinations of reason www.themarginalian.org/2026/03/02/t...

What a Weasel Knows That We Forget: Annie Dillard on How to Live Suppose we answer the most important question of existence in the affirmative. There is then only one question remaining: How shall we live this life? Despite all the technologies of thought and fe…

What a weasel knows that we forget – Annie Dillard on how to live www.themarginalian.org/2026/03/04/a...

The pain in you and the god in you – Carl Jung on the relationship between psychological suffering and creativity www.themarginalian.org/2026/03/04/c...

"Time has never existed, and never will; it is a purely artificial arrangement. It is eternity now, it always was eternity, and always will be."

Gorgeous read from a gorgeous mind: www.themarginalian.org/2024/03/01/r...

A #birdivination for today and the eternal todayness of life. As always, find it as a solo print and part of the deck of 100, along with the story and process behind them, at almanacofirds.org

How to Be a Stone: Three Poems for Trusting Time If you want to befriend time — which is how you come to befriend life — turn to stone. Climb a mountain and listen to the conversation between eons encoded in each stripe of rock. Walk …

How to be a stone – 3 poems for trusting time www.themarginalian.org/2025/06/21/s...

"It is said that his time was easier than ours, but I doubt it — no time can be easy if one is living through it."

It is just such a pleasure reading Baldwin writing about Shakespeare (and really about love) www.themarginalian.org/2016/11/11/j...

John Steinbeck on Good and Evil, the Necessary Contradictions of the Human Nature, and Our Grounds for Lucid Hope “All the goodness and the heroisms will rise up again, then be cut down again and rise up. It isn’t that the evil thing wins — it never will — but that it doesn’t die.”

“All the goodness and the heroisms will rise up again, then be cut down again and rise up. It isn’t that the evil thing wins — it never will — but that it doesn’t die.”

A Steinbeck gem from the peak of WWII: www.themarginalian.org/2016/12/30/j...

The paradox of knowing who you are and what you want – beloved Italian storyteller Cristina Campo on fairy tales, time, and the meaning of maturity
www.themarginalian.org/2025/07/29/c...

Tucked into Solvej Balle's lovely meditation on the qualities of a lasting relationship and the salve for the betrayals of time is the best definition of love I have ever encountered: www.themarginalian.org/2026/01/24/s...

Pablo Neruda on how to hold time www.themarginalian.org/2026/03/03/n...