That which one has set oneself to do, one should not relinquish on the grounds of absence of mind or distraction.
Leo Tolstoy, born 190 years ago today, on personal growth.
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The object of art is not to make salable pictures. It is to save yourself… Most people remain all of their lives in a stupor. The point of being an artist is that you may live.
On Fathers Day, the beautiful letter of advice on art and life Sherwood Anderson sent to his young son when he left home to be an artist.
Marine biologist and writer Rachel Carson, who catalyzed the modern environmental movement, on writing and the loneliness of the creative life.
Magnificent advice on writing and the loneliness of creative work from the woman who catalyzed the modern environmental movement.
Wonderful advice on how to move through times of acute despair from one of the great Buddhist teachers of our time.
Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Atlantic on this day in 1937 and left, in a letter to her sister, her timeless advice on sticking up for yourself.
I submit that this is what the real, no-bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out.
12 years ago today, David Foster Wallace delivered his magnificent “This Is Water” speech.
James Baldwin on same-sex love, the trap of labels, and his advice on coming out – the beloved writer’s most personal interview.
Our Political Emotions – philosopher Martha Nussbaum on taming our raging reactivity and nurturing our noblest civic selves, an immensely insightful and lucid perspective on our disorienting political moment.
Be honest, frank and fearless and get some grasp of the real values of life… Read some good, heavy, serious books just for discipline: Take yourself in hand and master yourself.
For W.E.B. Bu Bois’s birthday, his magnificent letter of life-advice to his teenage daughter.
People who for some reason find it impossible to think about themselves, and so really be themselves, try to make up for not thinking with doing.
The poet Laura Riding’s remarkable 1930 letters of advice to an 8-year-old girl are full of timeless wisdom on life and creative work, partway between Rilke’s Letters to a Young Artist and the Zen teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh.
The irreplaceable Susan Sontag, who would’ve been 84 today, on storytelling, what it means to be a moral human being and her advice to writers.
Another year, another workweek. Marcus Aurelius’s terrific advice on how to motivate yourself to get out of bed and go to work every morning, written 2,000 years ago and just as excellent today.
At all costs try to avoid granting yourself the status of the victim. Of all the parts of your body, be most vigilant over your index finger, for it is blame-thirsty. A pointed finger is a victim’s logo — the opposite of the V-sign and a synonym for surrender. No matter how abominable your condition may be, try not to blame anything or anybody: history, the state, superiors, race, parents, the phase of the moon, childhood, toilet training, etc. The menu is vast and tedious, and this vastness and tedium alone should be offensive enough to set one’s intelligence against choosing from it. The moment that you place blame somewhere, you undermine your resolve to change anything.
On this day in 1988, Joseph Brodsky delivered the greatest commencement address of all time