from brainpickings.org Dec. 31, 2013

Wikipedia entry for Maria Popova, curator

About Brain Pickings

Brain Pickings is the brain child of Maria Popova, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large,

Happy Birthday, Brain Pickings: 7 Things I Learned in 7 Years of Reading, Writing, and LivingReflections on how to keep the center solid as you continue to evolve. Fail Safe: Debbie Millman’s Advice on Courage and the Creative Life“Imagine immensities, don’t compromise, and don’t waste time.” A spectacular illustrated-essay-turned-commencement-address. What Is Love? Famous Definitions from 400 Years of Literary History“Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get — only with what you are expecting to give — which is everything.” From Shakespeare to Sontag, the most beautiful definitions of the highest human capacity. Advice to Little Girls: Young Mark Twain’s Little-Known, Lovely 1865 Children’s BookThe playful short story young Mark Twain had written in 1865 at age of 30, newly illustrated by celebrated Russian-born children’s book illustrator Vladimir Radunsky, mischievously encouraging girls to think independently rather than blindly obey rules and social mores. Why Time Slows Down When We’re Afraid, Speeds ...

Brain Pickings April 2013 by Maria Popova

How to keep one of the greatest human gifts from becoming one of our most cumbersome curses.

“Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider,” 

In my opinion, Maria Popova along with John Brockman- Edge.org, and Amara Angelica- Kurzweil AI.net are among the premier curators of ideas today.

Vintage Anatomical Charts of the Male and Female Body, as Animated GIFs

Illustrators and Visual Storytellers Map the World

Synergetics and The Wellspring of Reality: Buckminster Fuller Against Specialization

The Age of Edison: Radical Invention and the Illuminated World

You Are Stardust: Teaching Kids About the Universe in Stunning Illustrated Dioramas

Richard Feynman on the Universal Responsibility of Scientists

Amanda Palmer on the Art of Asking and the Shared Dignity of Giving and Receiving

 

From August 20, 2012 Brain Pickings, Maria Popova

“It’s part of the nature of man to start with romance and build to a reality.”

On November 12, 1971, the day before NASA’sMariner 9 mission reached Mars and became the first spacecraft to orbit another planet, Caltech Planetary Science professor Bruce Murray summoned a formidable panel of thinkers to discuss the implications of the historic event. Murray himself was to join the great Carl Sagan (♥) and science fiction iconsRay Bradbury (♥) and Arthur C. Clarke (♥) in a conversation moderated by New York Timesscience editor Walter Sullivan, who had been assigned to cover Mariner 9′s arrival for the newspaper. What unfolded — easily history’s only redeeming manifestation of the panel format — was a fascinating quilt of perspectives not only on the Mariner 9 mission itself, or even just Mars, but on the relationship between mankind and the cosmos, the importance of space exploration, and the future of our civilization. Two years later, the record of this epic conversation was released in Mars and the Mind of Man (public library), alongside early images of Mars taken by Mariner 9 and a selection of “afterthoughts” by the panelists, looking back on the ...

by Maria Popova

“Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”

In 1989, Stephen R. Covey penned The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (public library), a book that went on to sell millions of copies worldwide and defined a new genre bridging self-improvement, business management, and personal productivity. This week, Covey passed away at the age of 79. Here’s a look back at his legacy with some of the keenest insights from his beloved bestseller.

Habit is the intersection of knowledge (what to do), skill (how to do), and desire (want to do).

Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.*

People can’t live with change if there’s not a changeless core inside them.

Until a person can say deeply and honestly, ‘I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,’ that person cannot say, ‘I choose otherwise.’

To learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.

It ...