Elizabeth Gould (July 18, 1804–August 15, 1841) found working as a governess “miserably-wretched dull.” Artistically and musically gifted, boundlessly curious […]
“One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives depends on how
By Maria Popova Biking back to my rented cottage from CERN one autumn evening, having descended into the underworld of
“That best fact, the Moon,” Margaret Fuller called it. “No one ever gets tired of the moon,” Walt Whitman wrote
By Maria Popova The mind is a camera obscura constantly trying to render an image of reality on the back
Nothing on Earth appears more divine yet attests more fully to the materiality of being than clouds — enchanting emblems
On September 20, 1845, the polymathic Scottish mathematician Mary Somerville — the woman for whom the word scientist was coined
Each time we have tried to elevate ourselves above the other animals by claiming singular possession of some faculty, we
“There’s no place like home,” Dorothy sighs in The Wizard of Oz. But home is not a place — it