Beautiful Sentiments

On his deathbed, Darwin himself lamented having failed to keep feeding his mind those greatest nourishments of the empathic imagination — none mightier, he believed, than poetry and music — turning it instead into “a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts.” He saw, from the wistful vantage of nearing the void, h... See more

You did not come into this world. You came out of it

Intelligence is a form of friendship with the world. It can’t be cultivated out of fear of it.

Being human is not hard because you're doing it wrong, it's hard because you're doing it right. You will never change the fact that being human is hard, so you must change your idea that it was ever supposed to be easy

Generic ambition will give you anxiety. Specific ambition will give you direction.

Collecting and archiving are ways to reclaim and own our attention—they are acts of meaning-making. These practices are rituals: habits and skills that demand time, patience, and a willingness to look beyond the surface.

To collect well is to resist algorithmic influence. A true collection reflects deeply personal values and a genuine desire to know... See more

"If you're 37... Instead of regretting that you can't wake up age 18 again, pretend to yourself that you're 90 and you've woken up age 37 again, and that you get to magically, wonderfully have the next 50 years again."