a visual way to explore the brain pickings book archive :: otlet's shelf theme :: back to brain pickings
CREATIVITY :: DESIGN :: SCIENCE :: HISTORY :: PSYCHOLOGY :: ART
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“We live in an age in which ideas, important ideas, are worn like articles of fashion.”
Beware the rise of the pseudo-intellectual – Tom Wolfe’s magnificent Boston University commencement address:
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A glorious illustrated love letter to our world – from sunsets to salamanders, ferns to feathers, mushrooms to mountains, and the whole enchanting aliveness in between:
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How to write a great essay — Robert Frost’s fantastic letter of advice to his young daughter:
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“The idea of the world as composed of weightless atoms is striking just because we know the weight of things so well.”
Italo Calvino on the unbearable lightness of language, literature, and life – metaphorical magic and wisdom from his final legacy, the Harvard lectures he wrote shortly before his death in 1985 and never got to deliver:
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“Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas.”
“A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated” by Oscar Wilde, penned in 1894 but no less witty and wise today:
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“Leaders remain leaders only as long as you let them.”
An honest and controversial vintage guide to teenage sexuality, education reform, and independent thinking, back after 40 years of being banned
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Where do babies come from? A sweet and honest primer on reproduction from illustrator extraordinaire Sophie Blackall
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Buckminster Fuller presages online education, with a touch of TED, Netflix, and Pandora, in 1962 – prophetic vision for mobile, time-shifted, tele-commuted, on-demand education:
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“Graphic design needs your willing mental participation, even if it’s subconscious.”
Fantastic, first-of-its-kind graphic design primer for kids by iconic graphic designer Chip Kidd
Bonus: Chip tells a hilarious story of how and why he French-kissed Neil Gaiman at Comic Con:
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“Character is at least as important as intellect.”
Fascinating read on psychologist Angela Duckworth’s work, which demonstrates why grit, not IQ, is the key to success
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Fascinating read on sleep and the teenage brain – or how school schedules are sabotaging well-being.
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“Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before.”
Neil Gaiman’s fantastic commencement address, adapted by design legend Chip Kidd
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A wonderful manifesto for fueling the internal engine of lifelong learning
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“Write! Writing, to knowledge, is a certified check.”
14 ways to acquire knowledge – a timeless guide from 1936:
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How an 18th-century bachelor enlisted Rousseau’s teachings in Frankensteining his better-ever half.